mm. 




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MEMORIES AND MEMORIALS 



I 



MEMORIES AND MEMORIALS 



GATHERINGS 
FROM AN EVENTFUL LIFE 



BY 



JwL A Y JA AcjC) AULE Y 



When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, 
I thought as a child : bat when I became a man, 
I put away childish things. 



And now abideth Faith, Hope, Love, these three: . 
Faith is the substance of things hoped for; 
but the greatest of the three is Love. 

Paul the Apostle 



1914 



t2 \J^i^ 



Printed by 
The Fukuin Printing Co., L4d., 
Yokohama, Japan. 



Author 
ntortu) 



v To You 

To Whom this Present comes,— 
My Greeting. 



A year ago, having crossed the mark 
" Three-score and Ten,' ' naturally I thought 
much of the past. Many recollections were 
renewed : some of them fraught with merely 
personal importance ; some with larger and 
more significant moment. 

Along with these recollections came the 
wish that you, with others who are genuinely 
interested, should know more fully of a few of 
the decisive happenings in my career. 

Without near relatives now, or any asso- 
ciate sufficiently informed to speak adequately 
for me, only I can tell of what I wish you to 
know. 



IV 



Moreover, I have thought it might in itself 
be worth while should I collect into one 
group some of the more important of the 
speculative ventures I have made from time 
to time, in Philosophy, in Theology, and in 
Religion, together with a few of my essays in 
Criticism and in Literature, which are now 
widely separated in pamphlets and in various 
other publications. 

Thereupon, the " Memories and Memorials " 
that find association in these pages were 
gathered and are. sent to you as a token of 
my regard for you and as one of your sou- 
venirs of me,— 

Your friend, — 

Clay MacCauley. 

Japan Unitarian Mission, 
Twenty-fifth Anniversary, 
Tokyo, November, 1914. 



CONTENTS 



FOREWORD 



I 

FEOM INHERITED CREED 

TO 

PERSONAL FAITH 
1843-1869 

Chapter First 

"WHEN I WAS A CHILD " 

Page 

Environment in Childood ... ... 14 

a, A Community of u Scotch Irish" Descent, 14; b. Other 
Chambersburg People, 16 ; c. Religious Surrounding?, 16. 

Personal Characteristics as a Child 18 

Influence of Ancestral Creed 23 

"Conversion" and Choice of Ministry as Vocation... 26 

a. My " Conversion" 26 ; b. Choice of the Ministry, 27. 
Entrance into College 29 



Chapter Second 

OF COLLEGE DAYS 

At Dickinson College ... 31 

a. Pertinent Experiences at Dickinson, 32 ; 

early record of natural liberalism 34 

At Princeton College 36 

a. Religious Experiences at Princeton* 37 ; Spiritual and Intel- 
lectual Limitations, 39 ; c. Attempt to be a Colporteur, 41 ; 

I. A YEAR AS A SOLDIER 44 

d. Return to Princeton, 47. 

II. ORATION AT GRADUATION ... ... ... 48 



VI 



CONTENTS 



Page 

3. Between College and Seminary ... 50 

with the united states christian commission 50 

4. The Northwestern Theological Seminary 51 

AGAIN WITH THE CHRISTIAN COMMISSION 51 



Chapter Third 

MENTAL UNREST 

AS A 

THEOLOGICAL STUDENT 

1. Licentiate of the Presbytery of Chicago 55 

a. The Summer at Depere, Wisconsin, 56. 

First Official Sermon , 56 

6. Notable Sequence to the Sermon, 59 ; c. First Knowledge of 

Dr. BushnelVs Theology, 63 ; d. Increase of Unrest, 64 ; e. 

Decision to become a Liberal Congregationalist, 66. 

2. Concerning an Important Personal Factor 68 

a. Illustrative Incident at Princetm, 72 ; 

"Our Shrine and our Fraternity" 76 

3. A Congregational Pastorate in Prospect 79 

4. Graduation from Theological Seminary 80 



Chapter Fourth 

THE WINNING OF MY FAITH 

Ministry at Morrison e 82 

a. The Council at Morrison, 82; b. Public Comment on the 
Council, 85 ; c. Citation to appear before the Presbytery, 87 ; 

WITHDRAWAL OF PRESB YTERI AL LICENSE, 88. 

d. Declination of renewed Invitation to Morrison, 90 ; e. Extracts 
from Correspondence, 93. 

I 

Beginnings of Separation from Orthodox Fellowship. 99 
a. Acquaintance with Spencer's " First Principles," 103 ; 
6. Correspondence with Charles Carroll Everett, 104 ; c. Visit 
to Robert Collyer, 105 ; c?. Special Lecture in Morrison-, 107 ; 



CONTENTS 



VII 



Page 

II 

Man : His Relation to Force and Law 109 

e. Beading "Broken Lights, " and "Reason in Religion" 113; 
/. Conscious Release from Orthodoxy, 113. 

At Detroit ... 114 

a. Invitation to Detroit Unitarian Church, 115 ; b. Public Com' 
ment on my becoming a Unitarian, 116. 

At Eochester ... 119 

a. Installation at Rochester, 119 ; b. First Public ^Attack on 
Calvinism, 120 ; 

The Dignity of Human Nature 121 

c. Character of the Rochester Ministry, 129 ; d t Why I left 
Rochester, 135. 

Pastorate at Waltham ... ... 136 

a. Installation at Waltham, 137. 



Chaptee Fifth 

THE FAITH I HAD GAINED . 

Summary of my Faith 141 

I 

An Apology for Christianity ... 142 

a. the radicalism of Christianity 143 

b. THE RELIGION OF JESUS, THE TRUE CHRISTIANITY ... 145 
C. COMPARATIVE RELIGION SHOWS THE SUPERIORITY OF 

CHRISTIANITY .,. ... 150 

II 

Inaugural Sermon at Waltham. 
The Work of a Unitarian Christian Church ... 153 

III 

South Middlesex Conference Address ... ... 163 

IV 

The Possibility of Spiritual Science 161 

V 

The Eelation of Unitarianism : 

to the Older Christian Sects 182 



VIII 



CONTENTS 



Chapter Sixth 

Page 

CONSUMMATE EXPRESSION OF MY FAITH. 

a. RESIGNATION FROM THE WALTHAM PULPIT, 190 ; b. In 

Europe : — Heidelberg, Leipzig, and Dresden, 192 ; c. The 
Philosophy of Karl Christian Friederick Krause, 192 ; d. An 
Exposition of my Faith in God, 196. 

I 

Faith in God , ... 197 

II 

Faith in God 
How Compatible with the Fact of Evil ... ... 207 



II 

MID-LIFE ME MOK ABILI A. 
1875-1889 



Chapter First 

OF THE WASHINGTON MINISTRY 

1. The First Unitarian ^Church, Washington, D. C. ... 231 
a. Beginning of my Washington Ministry, 232/ b. Corner Stone 
for All Souls Church laid, 234 ; 

Corner-Stone Hymn 235 

c Organization of All Souls Church 236 

d. Election to Pastorate of All Souls Church, 237 ; e. Dedication 
of All Soids Church, and my Installation as its Pastor, 241. 

I 

Sermon at leaving the Old Church for the New : 

Life's Progress from Form to Form 242 

II 

Letter resigning the Pastorate ... 255 

g. Concerning this Resignation, 259. 



CONTENTS 



IX 



Chaptee Second 
of the decade, 1880-1889 

Page 

1. With the Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian Insti- 

tution, 1880-1884 265 

a. Visit to the Menomenee of Wisconsin, 265; 

I 

The North American Indian Dreaders ... 265 
b. Stay among the Seminole of Florida, 282 ; 

II 

Environment of the Seminole 283 

a. nature, 283. b. man, 287. 

2. In Minneapolis and St. Paul : 1884-1889 290 

a. Unity Church in St. Pau 1 , 291. b. Candidacy for Professor- 
ship in the University of Minnesota, 291; 

C. COURSE OF LECTURES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MIN- 
NESOTA ... 299 

I 

The Meaning and Value of the Study of Philo- 
sophy 300 

II 

Philosophy in the Present Age ... ... 315 

d. More about Krause ... 310 

III 

Fundamental Data for Psychology 313 

IV 

The Mind's Process in Thinking 361 

V 

Nature andSour ces of Moral Obligation 380 

VI 

Apprehension and Eeal Worth of The Principle 

of Philosophy" 399 

e, Two Study-Class Lectures 119 

I 

Dante: Medieval Theologian and Philosopher... 420 

II 

The Close of the Medieval Art of Painting ... 140 
/. Appointment to the Japan Unitarian Mission 454 



CONTENTS 
III 

SOME EECOEDS OF THE 
JAPAN UNIT AE IAN MISSION 
1889-1914 



I 

The Religious Problem in Japan : How Solve it ? ... 461 

II 

Signs of Promise in Japan ... 481 

III 

The Japan Mission: A Record ... ... 503 

IV 

The Present Religious Condition of Japan 521 

V 

Special Lectures on Japan : in America, 1900-1905 ... 549 

VI 

Present Status of the Japan Mission 550 

I. Becent Working of the Mission, 550 ; n. The Mission's Later 
Growth and Work, 552; in. Ihe Mission's Present Status, 555. 

VII 

Japan's Present Dangers and Need 557 



IV 

MEMOKIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR 
1859-1865 



Page 

An Appeal to John Brown 574 

II 

Major General George H. Thomas; An Incident of 
Interest 580 

in 

Personal Experiences in the Army as told in 
Letters 581 



CONTENTS XI 
IV 

Page 

A Story of The Maryland Campaign of 1862 584 

V 

Soldier Letters, continued 597 

tribute to mrs. helen gilson osgood 598 

VI 

Through Chancellorsville into and out of Libby 

Prison: Home Again 614 

i. from the battlefield at chancellorsville into libby 

PRISON 614 

II. IN LIBBY PRISON AND OUT OF IT: HOME AGAIN ,. % ... 631 

vir 

The Rhode Island Monument at Andersonville 
Prison :— 

Citizen-life in Memory of "Our Honored Dead" ... 648 

VIII 

The Lincoln of Centennial Memory, (1909) 665 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 
I 

The GENrus and Work of Robert Burns 679 

II 

Charles Dickens : An Appreciation 696 

III 

Japanese Poetry 710 

IV 

l I-RO-HA Hymn 736 

ii. The Japanese National Hymn ..." ... 736 

V 

The Japanese Landscape 737 



APPENDICES 

1. Bibliographic Note , 763 

2. Errata 766 

3. Index ... 767 



THE ULTIMATE REACH OF FAITH. 



I am the Lord, and there is none else : 
There is no God besides me. 

1" form the light, and create darkness : 
I make peace and create evil : 
I, the Lord, do all these things. 

I have made the earth, and created man upon it; 
T, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, 
And all their host have I commanded. 

And there is no God else beside me ; 
A just God and a Saviour : 
There is none beside me. 

From " The Isaiah of the Captivity" 

Sixth Century Before Christ. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Frontispiece 

Page 

At the Chambersburg Academy, 1853 13 

At Dickinson College, 1859 30 

At Princeton College: and in the Army of the Union, 

1863 . 44 

At the Northwestern Theological Seminary, 1866 54 

First Congregational Church, Morrison, Illinois, 1867... 82 
First Unitarian Congregational Church, Kochester, New 

York, 1868 120 

At Waltham, Massachusetts, 1869 136 

Annie Deane MacCauley 136 

First Parish Church, Waltham, Massachusetts, 1869 ... 154 
All Souls Church, Washington, D. C, dedicated Janu- 
ary 29th, 1878 242 

Personnel of the Unitarian Mission to Japan, 1889-1892. 460 
From left, front row ; — Prof. J. H. Wigmore, Rev. W. I. Laurance, 
Rev. Clay MacCauley, Secretary Saichiro Kanda, Prof. W.S. Lis- 
comb, Prof. Garrett A. Droppers. Inset ; upper left, Rev. H. W. 
Hawkes ; upper right, Rev. A. M. Knapp. Also the members of 
the first class in the Mission Theological School ;—Jiyu Shin Gakko. 
First Home of the Japan Mission, Hachikancho, Tokyo, 

1890-91 480 

Yuiitsukwan (Unity Hall), Mita, Tokyo, Japan, 1894 ... 486 

With the Japan Unitarian Mission, 1900 502 

Clay MacCauley Memorial Toro, Tokyo, 1905 548 

Japanese friends signalized my return to Japan in 1905, ly erect- 
ing, in the grounds of Unify Ha!l } a monumental stone lantern, — 
ancient Nara style, — inscribing on it my name, the date, — " Nov. 3, 
1905," — and the sentiment Ki-nen-to, " Remembrance Cherishing 
Bearer of Light.. ,} 

, Soon after my second return, in 1909, I received from His Majesty, 
the Emperor, a decoration of " The Order of the Rising Sun." 
In 1910, 1 was made an Honorary Alumnus of the Keio University. 



XIV 



ILLUSTKATIONS 



Page 

Group of Bepresentative Unitarians in Japan, 1910 ... 550 
Farewell testimonial to Secretary Saichiro Kanda after his twenty 
years af service. 

Interior of Unity Hall, 1911 ... 551 

Officers of Japan Unitarian Association, with Eev. F. G. 

Peabody, D.D., A.U.A. Delegate to Japan, 1913 556 

Some members of the Tokyo Unitarian Church, also in the group. 
Guests of Honor and their Hosts at the Press 

Luncheon, Tokyo, June, 1914 562 

Seated, from left to right, Mr, Taketomi Minister for Communica- 
tions ; Mr. Ozahi, Minister for Justice ; General Oka Minister for 
War; the Premier Count Okuma; Baron Kato Foreign Minister; 
Clay MacCaxdey, Vice- President of the International Press Association, 
and Dr. Ichiki, Minister for Education. Among those standing from 
left to right, Mr. Motono of the Yomiuri ; Mr. Kuroiwa of the Yorodzu ; 
Mr. Minoura of the Hochi; Mr. Wakatsuki Minister for Finance ; 
Admiral Yashiro, Minister for the Navy, and Mr. Clarke of the New 
York Sun, 

With the Japan Mission, 1914 570 

Second Lieutenant, Co. D., 126th Kegiment, Pennsylvania 

Volunteers,1862-63 608 

Libby Prison, Kichmond, Virginia, 1863 632 

Ehode Island Monument, Andersonville, Georgia, 1903... 648 

Kimi ga Yo : Japanese National Hymn 736 

Cherry Bloom at Unity Hall, Tokyo, 1914 756 



FOREWORD 



This June day, 'mid these Asian mountain heights,— 
Far from the stir of human strife and task, — 
Tn meditative mood by me is spent. 

Somehow it minds me, in its passing hours, 
Of life as growing through the lapsing years :-<*■ 
Such years as reach their full in blessedness. 



This morning's sun spread wide a gladsome light 
O'er hill and dale ; o'er stream and flowery mead. 
Where'er I looked the wakened world, agleam, 
Bespoke a day secure in brightening joy. 

Yet, with the moving hours, the sun was dimmed; 
Chill, blinding mists sped o'er the happy sky; 
And gloom, with desolating storm-drift, lowered. 

But, in the gloom, nor faith nor hope e'er failed. 
The sunless hours, to patient service given, 
And faithful waiting for the good to be, 
Wore on. 

Not vain the wait. 

The sky illumed : — 
Calm, lustrous clouds then shone in azure deeps. 
And, e'er noon came, the darkened, troubled world 
Rejoiced again beneath the full-orbed snn. 



Clear noon from morn; to light through gloom, from light 
So grows this June day 'mid Far Fastern hills. 

Blest age from youth : to bliss through grief, from joy, 
So life may grow for us through lapsing years. 

Karuizawa Hills, Japan. 
Summer Holidays, 1911. 



FOREWORD 



The great world would make no note were these 
" Memories " to die with me, or were the " Memorials/ 1 
here collected, left without this repetition. But there is a 
goodly number of persons living in various, widely separat- 
ed, parts of our great world, whom, fortunately, I know 
as friends. For them, primarily, the book has been 
written ; and to them it has been dedicated, 

1. 

It is not my intention, however, in doing this, to make 
of the book a confidential communication. I regard the 
experiences and the opinions here brought together as 
having too much a representative value for many earnest 
minds to-day, for them to be privately held. 

There are too many persons now disturbed by a mental 
unrest and longing like mine ; too many aroused by like 
aspirations towards spiritual freedom, and for growth in 
religious faith and life, for that. I am reassured in 
making this claim by a reflection I have happened upon in 
the " Letters of Charles Eliot Norton," recently published, 
that— 

" It is a curious and interesting study of character to 
observe a man, liberal by nature but bred in the tradi- 
tions and creed of narrowest and most bigotted orthodoxy, 
so that his life has been a struggle by which he has at 
last fairly achieved freedom/' 



FOREWORD 



As for the rest of the book, I believe it will be of good 
service to the reading of many beyond the inner circle of 
my friends. I am sure, for instance, that, in these 
collected writings, numerous time-pictures have been faith- 
fully sketched of the movement of Liberal Christian 
thought in the last half-century, even in far-away parts 
of the world. 

Here, particularly, are given some reliable illustrations 
of the social, literary, political and religious agitations and 
changes of the people of Japan during the past twenty- 
five years. 

Then, in the record of my experiences, through the four 
years of the American Civil War, are preserved some 
helpful historic materials concerning the great conflict. 

And further, I venture to believe that in some of the 
more mature of these gathered essays and lectures are real 
contributions to a study of the deepest problems which 
involve man's intellectual development and spiritual 
enlightment. 

For these reasons, although the book is primarily the 
outcome of a wish to tell more fully to inquiring friends 
the story that many of them know in part, I do not object, 
should any one, who cares about the things of which I 
have written, read it, and should he make it a matter of 
comment, too, if he so choose. 

It is my request, hoivever, that, during my life-time, no 
published review of the book shall be given. 

2. 

A few words here about the manner of speech which I 
have used in the presentation of these " Memories." 

Because of the close personal relationship I bear to those 



FOREWOBL> 



whom I have had chiefly in mind, I have been quite uncon- 
ventional in my speech ; indeed, I have spoken, often, with 
but little formality, or even reserve. I have all along allow- 
ed myself the frankness and the egotism usual in intimate 
personal intercourse. I have not attempted any mock- 
modesty as a cover for -what has come naturally in these 
self-disclosures and frequent self-appreciations. I offer no 
apology for this. No one could tell the story truthfully 
but myself ; and it would only embarrass the telling were 
I to try to avoid the obtrusive Ego. 

But, in calling attention to this continuous self- reference, 
I am confident that these of my readers who know 7 me 
well will not be repelled as they read ; or be inclined to 
discredit what I have written. I believe that they will 
assume that I have been sincere throughout this record of 
mental and spiritual experience ; and, however else I may 
have failed, that I sought while undergoing the experiences 
to know and to do just what is true and right. I think 
that if I have any commendable mental characteristic it is 
a generous sincerity. I am habitually ready to hear what 
others affirm of a question under discussion, and to weigh, 
as strictly as possible at their real value, the reasons offered 
by others for the faith that is them. Then, when report- 
ing of a discussion and the conclusions drawn, I know I 
try to tell what I believe to be the truth. 

Relying upon this confidence of my friends, I have 
ventured in these " Memories " to comment at length 
upon three distinctly marked events which were of specific 
importance to me and others ; of which very few know 
the decisive facts, but about which inquiry has often been 
made. I refer to what I say of the reasons for my declining 
the renewed invitation of the Congregational Church at 



6 



FOEEWOBD 



Monison, Illinois, to be its minister ; for my not remaining 
longer as pastor of All Souls Church, Washington, D.C. ; 
and for " accepting without protest " the postponement of 
a proposed election to a chair in the faculty of the 
University of Minnesota. 

3. 

Another matter rightfully finds answer in this Foreword, 
namely, the reliability of the detailed statements I 
have given. I am fortunate in not being Compelled to 
tax too much the confidence of my friends. 

The " Memorials " are only reprints of articles which 
were published, most of them, long ago. What they tell 
is independent of my present powers of recollection, which, 
I know, might be delusive despite the most honest inten- 
tions to the contrary. So far as I know, none of these 
articles have been called in question. 

As to the " Memories — wherever they have any 
importance, or involve the opinions or doings of other 
persons, they are drawn directly from letters and documents 
in my possession now, originating at the times referred to. 
My parents, for instance, kept and gave to me many of my 
school and college letters ; also, a large number of the 
letters that I wrote when I was a soldier. I happened to 
keep many letters which I received in boyhood and youth. 

In the trying days of my theological unrest and change, 
my wife began to gather the increasing newspaper com- 
ment that came to us, and to put on file important 
correspondence. In the following years, she interested 
herself in preserving newspaper and other notices about 
me, filling, in time, a number of scrap books which became 
quite entertaining and personally valuable. After Mrs. Mac- 
Cauley had passed away, (April 11th, 1887), I continued the 



FOBEWOBD 



7 



collection. Consequently, I have had a guide in the telling 
of my story which has assured for my statements the telling 
of the truth. These scrap-books have been so well supplied 
with pamphlets and clippings, that, in them alone, I have 
material which goes far towards being a full record of my 
professional life. 

4. 

As I now pass this souvenir over to those for whom it 
has been written, I am prompted to add to these prefatory 
paragraphs a few comments upon a reflection which, 
probably, some of my friends will make upon the book as 
a whole. 

No one knows better than I do that the book bears a 
message which is alien to the thinking and motives actuat- 
ing a very large part of the present generation. Probably 
to some friends, who are intimately en rapport with the 
times, my story, however interesting personally, will be 
read as being far out of vital relation with the distinctive 
and dominant tendencies of modern thought and effort. 
My mental awakening ; my emancipation and independent 
choice of beliefs \ and the consequent regulation of my life, 
will be acknowledged as legitimate products of the "Spirit of 
the Age "; but the particular themes I have been busied 
with, and the conclusions I have reached concerning them, 
will not be regarded, by some, as at the front, or as pro- 
phetic, in the progress of mankind. 

For instance, the supreme object of my thinking and 
feeling has been the " God Idea," or "Faith in God." 
Yet, many of the most forceful and leading minds of the 
times pass by this theme altogether, or, in reference to it, 
profess what they name " Atheism " or 1 1 Agnosticism ; " 



8 



FOBEWOBD 



while multitudes of others, practically heedless of the great 
" Faith," are living " without God in the world." 

Also, in my story and in the essays and lectures 
accompanying it, I have continually dwelt upon " the 
Things of the Spirit;" emphasizing my conviction that, as & 
soul, only, does man fully realize the purpose of his 
existence, and that " by the soul, only, shall the nations be 
great and free." Yet, there is widely spread, seemingly 
as the most powerful regulative principle among both 
individuals and social organizations to-day, a practical 
Materialism, or mere Phenomenalism, accompanied by a 
Utilitarian Expediency. It is an age distinctive in mechani- 
cal achievement and physical progress. 

I have, further, been led to eulogize Christianity as the 
highest form of religion, when accepted and lived as 
sincere obedience to the law of " Love to God and Love 
to Man " of which Jesus was Prophet and Example. 
Yet, on the one hand, almost all the professed Christian 
Churches are identifying Christianity with either the cult 
of the Eoman hierarchic autocracy, or, if hostile to that, 
with the dogmatic, contra-natural creeds and sacraments • 
of the Middle Ages ; while, on the other hand, are hosts 
of men and women who make no pretence to any Christian 
discipleship, — -preferring the hazards of insistent self-asser- 
tion in an individual and social " Struggle for Existence." 

Moreover, I have written much of the supreme value of 
" ideals," and of the profound worth of " intuition," as an 
inspiration to human motive and conduct. Yet, I well 
know that multitudes despise both, and claim that only 
tangible realities and things of logical demonstration have 
any value. 

And I have dared, because of the sublime philosophy 



FOREWORD 



9 



into which my speculations have been led, to assume as 
the highest gain for man, faith in the " Immanent God," 
and the consequent essential Divine life of man, —his 
exalted natural dignity and his immortality. Yet, I 
know well, — none knows better, — that in the mankind of 
to-day there are unimaginative, inert multitudes who have 
no consciousness of their own innate worth; and who care 
practically naught for an answer to the question, " If a 
man die shall he live again. ? " 

I have not written in ignorance of, or as being unmind- 
ful of, the indifference, or antagonism, abounding at the 
present time concerning the thinking, feeling, hoping and 
trusting which pervade this book. Nevertheless I have so 
lived and learned, wrought and been guided, that any real 
personal token to my friends must set forth what I have 
accepted as the supreme motive force of my life. This 
testimony I must bear, though I hold it with but few 
others, or may bear it alone. Any one who knows me 
will understand that this book could not be essentially 
other than it is, and be from me. My friends will there- 
fore understand the message with which I close this 
Foreword : — 

The consummate gain of my many years of longing 
and effort to know the truth, is Faith : faith, which, with 
much else, makes me confident that at some time every 
human being will come into his own as an immortal soul ; 
indeed, that he will humbly, yet with steadfast conviction, 
become conscious of himself as in reality the offspring of 
the Eternal, — of the God " in Whom me live, and move 
and have our being,"— with "Whom, therefore, we can 
commune in filial adoration and love. 



FOEEWOBD 



"Our little systems have their day ; 

They have their day and cease to be: 
They are but broken lights of thee, 

And Thou, O Lord, art more then they. 

We have but Faith : we cannot know ; 

For knowledge is of things we see ; 

And yet we trust it comes from thee, 
A beam in darkness ; let it grow. 

Let knowledge grow from more to more, 
But more of reverence in us dwell ; 
That mind and soul according well, 

May make one music as before, 



But vaster." 



I 

FROM INHERITED CREED 

TO 

PERSONAL FAITH 

1843=1869 



There met me, as I wandered, 
One who said, " This burden bear ! " 

Steep before me rose the pathway, 
Yet I felt nor doubt nor fear. 

The bright day slowly vanished, 
And there came a long, drear night ; 

But, though wearied, 'neath my burden 
I still struggled up the height. 

At last, from very faintness, 
I fell prostrate in the dust ; 

And a voice arose in judgment, 
" Thou art faithless to thy trust." 

The voice with anguish filled me, 
And my eyes wept bitterest tears; 

Had I been, indeed, so faithless? 
Were so vain my toils and cares? 

I prayed, " O show me mercy ! n 
Then I prayed—I know not how,— 
For I heard this only judgment, 
" Faithless to thy trust art thou." 

And death was cruelly near me 
In that night, prone in the dust, 

When that voice was saying only, 
" Thou art faithless to thy trust." 



But, joy ! there came the morning; 
And, oh bliss ! with heavenly might, 
He, who laid the burden on me, 
Came and made my burden light, 

He said, " My well-beloved, 
Faithful to thy trust thou art ; 

Know that, though thy heart condemn thee, 
God is greater than thy heart." 

"Met' Agona Stephaxos." 

Waltham, Mass., 1870, 



PART FIRST 



FROM INHERITED CREED 

TO 

PERSONAL FAITH 



CHAPTER FIRST 
"WHEN I WAS A CHILD——" 

The story I am to tell in these pages is far from being 
that of a comprehensive, or general, autobiography. When 
the wish to tell it first came, I did not think of carrying it 
much beyond a recollection of the immediate influences 
which induced a serious questioning of my inherited creed, 
together with an account of the processes of my intellectual 
release, and a review of some of the more important of the 
experiences which followed the gaining of a personal faith. 

But, as I thought further, earlier memories, reminders of 
my childhood, arose and persistently pressed upon atten- 
tion. These early memories are of but little moment in 
themselves, I know; but I have decided to" give them 
place here. Some familiarity with my surroundings, when 
I was a child, and some knowledge of what manner 
of boy I was, will do a good deal, I think, towards giving 
a better understanding to my friends of what came to 
pass in the later years. To this extent my story has 
become an auto-biography of my childhood and youth, 



li FROM CREED TO FAITH PART I 

1. 

Environment in Childhood. 

Much pertinent information about the influences affect- 
ing me as a child may be drawn from the history and the 
character to the community in which I was born, May 
8th, 1843. 

Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, towards the middle of 
the past century had a population of nearly five thousand. 
Our people were an industrious and prosperous folk ; — 
the town having considerable importance from its being, a 
county seat, — the official and commercial center of a large 
and productive farming district. The town was the site, 
too, of some small special manufacturing industries. 

Particularly connected with these "Memories" is the fact 
that our community was composed chiefly of descendants 
of so-called " Scotch-Irish " immigrants, who, towards the 
middle of the Eighteenth Century, had fled from their 
home in North Ireland to America, for the sake of religious 
and political freedom. 

a. "The Scotch Irish: 9 — In the "Historical Sketch 

of Franklin County," — but much more than a "sketch," — 

written by my father, I. H. McCauley, 1878, I read ; 

" The term " Scotch-Irish " originated in this wise. In 
the time of James I. of England, who was a Scotch 
Presbyterian, the Irish Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell 

conspired against his government, were outlawed, 

and their estates seized by the Crown. King James 
divided these lands into small tracts and gave them to 
persons from his own country," (Scotland), "because they 
were Protestants, on the condition that they should cross 
over into Ireland - - - and locate upon them. A second 
insurrection soon after gave occasion for another large 
forfeiture, and nearly six counties in the province of Ulster 



1843-59 



THE SCOTCH IRISH 



15 



were confiscated - - - . The King was a zealous 
sectarian, and his primary object was - - - to repeople 
the country with those who, he knew, would be loyal. 

Having the power of the Government to protect them, 
the inducements offered to the industrious Scotch could 
not be resisted. Thousands went over. - - - 

These were the first Protestants introduced into Ireland. 
They at once secured the ascendancy in the counties, - - - - 
and their descendants have maintained that ascendancy 
to the present day against the efforts of the Government 
Church on the one hand and the Romanists on the other. 
They did not intermarry with the Irish. The Scotch 
were - - - Presbyterian in religion ; the Irish were 
Roman Catholic. - - - The races are as distinct in 
Ireland to-day, after a lapse of two hundred and fifty 
years as when the Scotch first crossed over." 

" In after times persecutions fell upon their descendants 
under Catholic governments, - - - and large num- 
bers emigrated and settled in New Jersey, Maryland 

and North Carolina. In September 1736, alone, 

one thousand families sailed from Belfast ; - - - Most of 
them came to the eastern and middle counties of Pennsyl- 
vania. They brought with them a hatred of oppression 
and a love of freedom - - - that served much to give 
that independent tone to the sentiments of our people 
which prevailed in their controversies with their home and 
foreign governments, years before they seriously thought 
of independence. They filled up this valley. " (Cumber- 
land, Pennsylvania). They cut down its forests, and 
brought its fair lands under cultivation. They fought the 
savage and stood as a wall of fire against his further 
forays eastward. 

Between 1771 and 1773, over twenty-five thousand of 
them (all Presbyterians) came hither, driven from the 
places of their birth by the rapacity of their landlords. 

The " Scotch Irish," in the struggle for national 

independence, were ever to be found on the side of the 
colonies. A tory was unheard of among them. 

' Pennsylvania owes much of what she is to-day to the 
- many of this race that settled within her 



10 FROM CBEED TO FAITH PAHT I 

borders. They were our military leaders, — and they were 
among our most prominent law-makers in the earliest days 
of the colony, and through and after - - - the struggle 
for freedom and human rights. They helped to make our 
constitutions and to frame our fundamental laws. They 
furnished the Nation with five President " ; — (six, at the 
date of the writing of these " Memories/' — Jackson, Polk, 
Buchanan, Arthur, McKinley and Wilson ; also, probably, 
Grant and Hayes, who were of Scotch ancestry) "and our 
State with seven Governors. Many United States Sena- 
tors " have come from them ; also " Congressmen, Judges 
and others eminent in all the vocations of life. 

None of the many diverse nationalities of which this 
great people is composed did more for the national good 
and prosperity than those known as the " Scotch-Irish " 
and their descendants. " 

b. Other Chambersburg People. — Associated with the 
" Scotch Irish " in Chambersburg were, in my childhood, 
many people whose ancestors, mostly Germans in descent, 
had been won, like the Scotch, by William Perm's 
invitation to come to his Colony and enjoy " free worship, 
freedom to choose their rulers and to make their own 
laws." 

For some time, after the year 1755, especial care was 
exercised by the Pennsylvania Proprietaries to segregate 
the incoming Scotch and Germans ; sending the Scotch to 
the Cumberland Valley and the Germans to York County. 
In Lancaster County, the two peoples had become seriously 
antagonistic. However, in time, the needs of business and 
other causes brought the peoples more or less together, 
amicably. Many intermarriages took place and numerous 
business partnerships were formed as years passed. 

c. 'Religious Surroundings. — Most notable in the 
personal relationships of my childhood is the fact that, then, 
the people of Chambersburg were still under the dominance 



1843-59 EAELY RELIGIOUS SURROUNDINGS 



17 



of the specific religious faiths and customs of their fore- 
fathers. Scotch Presbyterianism, more than any other 
influence, was uppermost in the town's social circles, and 
in its religious and educational institutions. For the rest, 
followers of Luther and his German fellow reformers, 
together with some disciples of Wesley, guided the religious 
beliefs and ways of the people. Of course, as in every 
considerable gathering of human beings, the community 
was not religious throughout. " Unregenerate " human life, 
— plenty ofit, — was there, too ; and, among the " professors 
of religion," there was often evident more or less " backslid- 
ing," indifference and " worldliness." But I cannot 
remember any one who made public question of the 
supremacy, over man's life, of some form of Christian faith, 
and of the necessity for its acceptance by each individual 
for the sake of his real welfare in this world and of his 
happiness "in the world to come." It can be said with 
truth that my native town, in my childhood, w r as under 
the undisputed control of organized Christianity ; especially 
of the Calvinism of Presbyterian Scotland. 

Personally, this fact meant much. It was my spiritual 
and intellectual inheritance, having special influence in the 
initial shaping of my character and in the beginnings of my 
personal growth. A deeply religious atmosphere pervaded 
my own home, and, generally, the homes of my school 
mates. Domestic worship, daily, and regular attendance 
upon religious services,' not only on Sundays but on the 
evenings of some other days of the week, besides Sunday 
School sessions for me, were established parts of our 
household routine. Then, among my earliest recollections 
are those of the sacred stories told me by my mother and 
grandmothers, and by other good kindred ; the hymns I 



18 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PAKT I 



heard daily ; and often repeated instruction received 
through Bible verses and the learning of the "Westminster 
" Shorter Catechism." I had been baptized by a minister 
of the Scotch "Covenanter," or Eeformed, Presbyterian 
Church ; thereby being made heir to the faith and motives 
of the ultra-conservative body of Scotch Calvinists, which 
was historic in the national struggle of Scotland for 
religious and political independence, and is described in 
one of their publications as " the suffering anti-popish, and 
anti-prelatical, anti-erastian, true Presbyterian Church of 
Scotland." My parents were communicants in the Old 
School Presbyterian Church,— the original Church of the 
town, — established in 1735. Bacause, however, of special 
personal friendship they had asked the " Covenanter " 
Church minister to baptize me. At about nine years of 
age, I became, regularly, a pupil of the Sunday School of my 
parents' church. In that school I was systematically, and 
with much care, indoctrinated theologically ; and from that 
school, when I was about fourteen years old, I became, 
apparently with a good understanding of what I was 
doing, " a member of the Church." 

2. 

Personal Characteristics as a Child. 

a. It should not be concluded, however, because of what 
I am saying of the prominence which religion had in my 
childhood's surroundings and experiences, that I became 
noticeably "sanctimonious," or "morbidly pietistic." I 
had an exceptionally happy nature) and I was unusually 
energetic physically. Besides, my sombre religious envi- 
ronment was more or less brightened by influences flowing 



At the Chamber sburg Academy, 



1843-59 



PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 



19 



from the increasing enlightenment of the times general- 
ly^ — which I readily welcomed. Altogether, it was 
impossible for me to be possessed by unwholesome thoughts 
or feelings, except perhaps for the passing moment. I 
dearly loved play, severe athletic games, adventurous and 
even dangerous sports. 

b. Though I was not of a quarrelsome nature, — quite the 
contrary — I was often party to boyish "fights," receiving 
as well as giving rather severe " punishment." Having 
by nature a rather acute self -consciousness, and a strong 
love of approbation, some of my "battles " were the result 
of resentment over wounded self-love and of an instinctive 
self-defense ; but it is pleasant to remember that more often 
they were the consequence of a natural revolt against 
what I considered to be injustice, or cruelty, to others. 
Cruelty to animals, to birds, and even to insects, aroused 
my fiercest ire. 

c. I think that I was never, intentionally, aggressive upon 
the rights or possessions of my playmates, or was ever 
what might be truthfully called " mean " in my bearing 
towards them, however mischievous my fun-making may 
have been. Whatever my reputation was as " a bad boy," 
it arose, I am sure, from the fact that I was just an enthus- 
iastic, even irrepressible participant in the natural life of a 
healthy, happy child. The school play-grounds and the 
streets of the town ; the near-by fields and woods ; the 
streams and the hill sides were sources of constant delight 
to me in those exhuberant years. 

It was my good fortune throughout childhood to be 
able to know life in large measure as a physical and 
mental pleasure. A characteristic episode of these years I 
described, long ago, in a story named, "How Charley 



20 FROM CREED TO FAITH PART I 

Eamsey Spent a Saturday." The story was included in a 
•collection made in 1880, by Mrs. Fanny B, Ames, 
entitled, " Christmas Day and All the Year." 

d. Associated with my abounding vitality and love of 
adventure, was much mental inquisitiveness, I had an 
exceptional liking, too, for school " declamation." Whether 
aroused to it by my father, or taking to it naturally, I do 
not know. But I remember frequent drillings in 
"orating,', in very early years, and especially an exciting 
time once at a Sunday School celebration, in grove " out in 
the country," when I could have not been more than six 
years in this world, "reciting my piece." And when I was 
but nine years of age, " June 8th, 1852," I declaimed an 
oratorical "poem" at a school exhibition, in a crowded 
auditorium, somewhere in Chambersburg. I think that 
the verses were a diversion of my father's pen, or of a 
generous " adaptation " he made. I happen to have the 
verses yet. I repeat them here largely because of their 
suggestion as to the kind of boy I was. 

My Ambition. 

Do not, my friends, expect to see, 

Poetic graces drop from me ; 

My youthful mind, my tender age 

As yet unfit me for the stage. 

Still, though but forty inches high, 

I love to spout, I'll not deny ;. 

And tho' a novice, in debate 

I would great models imitate. 

All men that e'er were famed for sense, 

Once learned, like me, their elements ; 

Of such our Country boasts a few, 

Whose names would grace a Scotch Review — 

Whose fame extends through ev'ry clime, 

And will outlive Old Father Time. 



1843 59 



PEKSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 



21 



I hold the ancient maxim true, 
" What boys have done, a boy may do ; " 
For nature's children are the same, 
Whether of high, or humble name. 
Grows not the stately branching tree, 
From the minutest seed we see ? 
And from the lowest rank we find, 
Spring up the noblest of mankind. 
May not our soil rear men as great, 
As any old or modern State ? 
Columbia's sons may sure excel, 
The ncblest deeds that histories tell ; 
The moving cause, is still the same, — 
Ambition and a deathless name. 

These truths my boyish mind elate, — 
To grow renown'd and wise and great. 
Of talent I have had a share, 
Committed to my fostering care ; 
Which if I do not well apply, 
No one will lose as much as L 

Now if my speaking don't display, 
The glowing style of Henry Clay : — 
Nor that of Webster, Benton, Jones, 
Whose thoughts gush forth in mellow tones, 
Whose powers a listening Nation awe, 
And plaudits from opponents draw ; 
Your right to censure, pray forbear, 
And youthful inexperience spare. 

e. I was also attracted by various handicrafts. The time 
for big factories and the gathering of hosts of work-people 
in them had not come ; — certainly not to our part of the 
world. Our town abounded in small shops, in each of 
which a few workmen were employed. These places 
greatly interested me. In school-vacation days, when I 
was about ten years old, I was much given to visiting 
these shops and playing at learning the trades followed in 



22 



FBOM CEEED TO FAITH 



PAKT I 



them. Doing this, I acquired in some measure skill in 
several kinds of manual work. 

I became, for instance, " a printer " ; I had my " stick/* 
and "rule," and was familiar with the "case.." In one 
of our newspaper offices I was often allowed to " compose," 
for the regular issues of the paper. I was also given place 
at a bench in the shop of a carpenter, who was my 
Sunday School teacher. I achieved some acceptable 
work at a turning lathe, and, with some help, built a 
commendable and speedy snow- sled. I acquired, also, 
a little of the potter's ait, in a factory belonging to the 
family of one of my school-mates. I became, in turn, also 
"a cooper"; "a blacksmith ;" and " a machinist." I 
was so fond of machinery that when I was missing from 
home, at the time I was about eleven years old, I was 
generally looked for, first, at the railway shops. In like 
manner, I became a " farmer ;" and " a merchant/' Even 
with these attainments the story of my amateur ventures 
into the industries and trades is not fully told. 

In inquisitiveness into boohs I was no less eager and 
insistent. The range of literature available for me was 
relatively large, though kept within safe ethical and theo- 
logical limits. I had much liking for books of travel ; and 
was exceptionally interested in whatever told of the lives 
and thinking of celebrated men. In my father's house- 
library, I found to my delight, a book, describing the early 
settlement of our Valley and the neighboring regions, full 
of thrilling adventures of our pioneers with the Indians. 
I revelled in its title ; " Scenes from Border Life." In yet 
earlier years, I had had the joy of becoming acquainted 
with such celebrities as " Eobinson Crusoe," " Lemuel 
Gulliver," and the " Swiss Family Eobinson." " The 



1843-59 



ANCESTRAL GREED 



23 



Parents' Assistant," together with the " Kollo Books 99 and 
the " Franconia Stories, " deeply interested me. Some- 
how, the last two series of stories fascinated me ; 
creating a romantic world for my imagination, so much so 
that I became subject at home to the teasing jest of 
having become a " Yankee." I have sometimes wondered 
how far the attraction to New England thus begun, and 
later increased even while I was a youth, influenced me 
in the critical mental and spiritual experiences through 
which I passed in maturer years. Other books that gave 
me much pleasure as I w 7 as entering youth w T ere Sir 
Walter Scott's novels ; several of Shakespeare's plays, and 
some of Dickens' stories. But at that time nothing so 
stirred my adventurous spirit as the stories of the Arctic 
regions told by Elisha Kent Kane, in his vividly written 
books newly published, and the strange record of Commo- 
dore Perry's Expedition to Japan, just placed in my father's 
library. Japan, then, became to me the most interesting 
among the far-away lands of the world ; indeed it is 
probable that the preparation w T as actually begun then for 
the close relationship to this land and its people I have had 
during the last twenty-five years. 

8, 

Influence of my Ancestral Creed. 

But while all that I have bean saying of my happy 
nature, love of play, varied interests and occupa- 
tions should be considered in recalling my childhood, I 
must remember, especially, the dominant influence in it of 
my ancestral " creed" Along with the generous reading of 
which I have just spoken, and forming by far the larger 
part of the literature available for me, or brought to my 



24 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



attention,, were the books that were concerned with my 
religious heritage. The Bible and the 4 'Westminster Shorter 
Catechism'' were of fundamental importance ; they were in 
daily use. I became familiar, too, with such works as 
Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress," and Fox's " Book of 
Martyrs," and the writings of several revered saints and 
scholars of the Calvinistic Creed. 

Also, in connection with my ordinary school-day ex- 
periences, sports and adventures, I was never wholly free 
from some kind of reminder, in my home, in school and 
at church, of the teachings of my ancestral "creed." Espe- 
cially was I confronted with the dogma that, "by nature," 
I and all other human beings are " totally depraved," and 
that we all are doomed to a miserable future forever, unless 
"saved" through " the atonement effected for mankind by 
Christ, the eternal Son of God, in the vicarious sacrifice he 
made on Calvary." In one form or another, this dogma was 
ever present to my child-mind. But with it came, through 
much urging, the further lesson that " the infinite merits of 
the Saviour's Sacrifice " would easily become my own if I 
would but " believe " in Him. If I would only " believe," 
then I should become " born again " as " a child of God " : 
— -the Holy Spirit would then "sanctify " me ; and after this 
life I should " enter Heaven, to enjoy an eternity of happi- 
ness with other redeemed souls," whom God had likewise 
chosen for "everlasting blessedness." 

For years, of course, this teaching was really meaning- 
less to me. I could not, with any adequate measure, grasp 
its purport. Bat I tried again and again, with all my 
powers of thinking and feeling, to understand and to profit 
by the truth ; because, however, unintelligible, as a matter 
of course, this teaching was heard as the perfect truth. 



1843-59 



INFLUENCE OF CREED 



25 



I could not think of it, under the conditions with which I 
received it, as anything else than " perfect truth." Every 
influence bearing upon me gave it the impress o. truth. 
It was the belief of my parents, and of all those whom I 
knew as having authority. I found it confirmed, so I 
supposed, in all the readings of the " Divine Eevelation 99 
prescribed for me. I accepted it as I accepted my 
parentage and my home ; and I held it as my most 
important possession, whether thinking of myself as one 
among " the saved," or not. This Creed was my spiritual 
inheritance. 

Sometimes its aw 7 ful purport troubled me, but I never 
questioned its absolute truth, then. I heard in later years 
that I had asked troublesome questions about it at times. I 
remember that once, when I w 7 as eight or nine years old, 
my mother, late one night, disturbed at seeing a light in 
my room, found me there, standing by a bureau, absorbed 
in thinking over the question, " Why does God foreordain 
any human soul to Hell if He is gcod and almighty? " 
I was speedily put to bed ; my mother entreating me to 
let such " dreadful thoughts" alone until I should be 
" old enough to think properly about them.'' My mother 
was never a very rigid, or consistent Calvinist, I now 
believe. While deeply religious she always avoided, so 
far as I remember, the terrible literalism of our family's 
inherited " creed." 

But I never actually doubted that inherited Creed then, 
so I have said. How could I? No traces of skeptical 
thinking; of anti-Christian speculation ; of " rationalistic " 
theology ; of a " critical " study of the Bible ; or even of 
any professed " Liberalism," or of " Progressiveness " in 
religion, were known of by me, either in my own home or 



26 FEOM CEEED TO FAITH PAET I 



in the homes of any of my playmates. If I heard at all 
of " infidels," and of "rationalists," I heard of them as 
" wicked people," or as " atheists " to be abhorred and 
shunned, For years afterwards, even when I might have 
freely become possessed of rationalistic books, as was once 
possible at my being offered Paine's " Age of Reason," I 
avoided even contact with what I was confident was the 
work of Satan. 

4. 

Conversion and Choice of the Ministry 
as Vocation. 

a. My " Conversion!' — During the extraordinary "Re- 
vival of Religion" which occurred through a large part of 
the country in 1857, the religious convictions which had 
been inwrought into the very fabric of my growing life 
and had often more or less strongly affected me, aroused a 
sense of responsibility for my welfare as a human soul, 
and of the exceptional privileges which I had for years been 
taught were mine, as a " baptized child of the covenant." 
" Salvation " became a most serious personal concern ; 
and, boy though I was, I began in earnest to pray for the 
new life that could be mine as a conscious " child of God." 

After a time of wretched inner struggle, there came a 
great uplift of emotion, and I rejoiced in the belief that 
I had really received the " Divine forgiveness ;" and " the 
witness of the Spirit with my spirit that I had been born 
of God and had been exalted to a place among those 
who are " saved." 

I then became, as said before, a member of my ancestral 
Church ; joining the historic u Congregation of the Falling 
Spring " in Chambersburg. Thereupon, I entered specific, 



1843-59 



CHOICE OF THE MINISTRY 



27 



and, for the time, engrossing religious relationships ; much 
encouraged and carefully guided by those who were 
leaders in the work of our church. 

Not long afterwards many influences induced me to 
think that the ministry of the Gospel should become my 
life's vocation, Thitherto, I had not thought at all 
seriously of the Ministry as a work to which I should 
devote my manhood. Even among earlier occasional 
religious experiences, my boyish predilections for a life-work 
were for something else. 

For some time, the profession of civil engineering 
possessed my longings. All that I had come to know of 
civil engineering was peculiarly attractive to me; and, in 
particular, the building of a railroad through our town 
' southward, had aroused my ambition to become a leader 
in that kind of work. I made friends of members of the 
surveying parties, as far as I could. I followed them, 
" chaining and staking," as they would let me. Their 
struggle with and conquest of hills and streams ; their out- 
of-door life, and travel into far-away places ; all such 
things attracted me and made me wish to be one of these 
pioneers. 

I was for some time, also, under a sort of spell caused 
by what I saw of my father's practice of the law. I 
became ambitious to follow him. Debate, argument and 
the fascination of oratory wrought a lure for me even 
then. I read violently one winter in " Blackstone," and 
iu " Kent." My out-of-school place for study was a back 
room in my father's office, which stood in the same lot 
with our home, at the head of "Lawyers' Row." 

b. Choice of the Ministry. — But my " conversion " and 
church membership soon changed wholly my childhood's 



28 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



imaginings and purposes concerning " What I should be 
when I became a man." My sympathetic temperament; my 
natural idealism, and, largely, my sense of gratitude for "the 
goodness of God " to me, took an overmastering possession 
of thought and feeling. Belief in the " ruin and doom of 
mankind " was intensified for me to so great a degree that 
it became the dominating force in my mood. Then, 
decisively, under the urging, especially of one relative, 
himself a minister in the Old School Presbyterian Church, 
I was overcome by the conviction that, because of my 
personal, social and religious privileges, I was "called," 
more than most others, to the mission of bearing to " doom- 
ed mankind " the message of their possible " salvation." 

For a while, too, I felt that upon me, especially, the 
duty was laid of consecration to the preaching of the 
Gospel to "far away heathen" who were " blindly perish- 
ing in sin." This is last named conviction; was at the time 
a most solemn and a most potent mental and emotional 
reality, only to be seriously discouraged by those who were 
nearest to me, then and later. 

My future having been thus determined, so far as desire 
and will could go at the time, I hegan special preparation 
for a course of education which would lead me at length 
directly into the Christian ministry as a clergyman of the 
Presbyterian Church. 

The first move made was into intimate association with 
a retired minister who had been connected with my 
home-church,— a scholar and educator of high local, and 
w T ide denominational, reputation. He had been one of 
my teachers in the Chambersburg Academy, and was 
fully entitled to the reverent affection I gladly gave him. 
He had been stricken with total blindness, and needed a 



1-843-59 ENTEANCE INTO COLLEGE 29 



reader. I was his reader through most of the succeeding 
two years ; the immediate years of my preparation for 
College ; he giving me in turn his help as instructor. He 
had au extraordinary verbal memory for most of the 
Latin and Greek classics ; — almost perfect for the writings 
of Caesar and of Vergil, and of Xenophon and of Homer, 
which it was necessary for me to " master " for my coming 
College entrance examinations. Our work was a " labor 
of love " mutually given. 

During this association with the Eev. James F. Kennedy, 
I had to do, for the first time, with a theological book in 
which there was a semblance of divergence from Orthodoxy, 
as I knew it, or which ventured upon some intellectual 
independence. The title of the work was "Yahweh." 
The discussion, naturally, was carried on well within the 
bounds of allowable thinking ; but the author argued that 
the true reading of the familiar Biblical name " Jehovah " 
is that of the title name of his book, " Yah web." 

For the most part, my reading for Mr. Kennedy was 
beyond my comprehension ; but this claim concerning the 
true name of the "Jehovah God" impressed me as a won- 
derful discovery. 

5. 

Entrance into College. 

My fifteenth and sixteenth years were passed, in the 
main, in this very happy and helpful service to my revered 
friend ; and, in the autumn of 1859, 1 was fortunate enough 
to enter the Sophomore Class of Dickinson College, at 
Carlisle, Pennsylvania. My father's intention had been to 
send me to Princeton ; but the mother, on the plea that it 
was too soon to send her only child to a college so far 



30 



FEOM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



from home, prevailed upon the father to start my college 
career at this excellent Methodist institution, which is only 
an hour's ride from Chambersburg. 

With entrance into College, however, a new epoch in 
my life was begun, Leaving my native town, I soon 
realized that I had left my childhood's home ; and, ere 
long, I knew that childhood, as well as the home of 
childhood, had become but a treasured memory. 




At Dickinson College, 1859 



31 



CHAPTER SECOND 

OF COLLEGE DAYS 
1. 

At DicJcinson College. 

In almost every relationship, life at College came to me 
as a novelty. It necessitated more or less changed ranges 
of thought and ways of living. I had never before been 
separated from direct parental care and the companionship 
of solicitous relatives and long familiar friends, except for 
part of one year. In my thirteenth year, because of pro- 
longed absence of my parents from their home, I was put 
in charge of the Moravian School at Lititz, Pennsylvania. 
But I was there cared for as a member of a family. At 
College, however, I became immediately personally free, 
and personally responsible, in the midst of wholly unfamil- 
iar surroundings. I was one among hundreds of other 
boys, strangers thitherto, gathered from many widely 
separated parts of the country ; reared under many kinds 
of social, intellectual and religious influences ; nearly all, 
like myself, separated for the first time from their homes, 
and compelled to meet and to adjust themselves to a novel 
environment. 

Almost inevitably, under these circumstances, important 
changes in one's mental and sccial manner of living would 
be wrought. But, so far as my religious experiences icere 
concerned nothing of radical moment occurred. The 
Carlisle community was much like that of Chambersburg, 



32 FROM CREED TO FAITH PART 1 

except as affected socially by the group of United States 
Army officers stationed at " The Barracks," in the town's 
suburbs. The College was conducted under strictly Ortho- 
dox, though not Calvinistic, religious principles ; and, 
practically, all the boys had come from homes which were, 
at least, associated with Christianity in some Orthodox 
form. 

a. Some Pertinent Experiences at Dickinson —The 
most marked personal change, pertinent to these " Memo- 
ries," because of my new surroundings, was a .gradual 
lapse from the highly exalted spiritual mood with which 
I had come away from home. At no time, during the 
two years I was at Dickinson, did I lose sense of having 
entered College " to study for the ministry." But the 
ministry, ere long, seemed to be very far away. The 
normal life of boyhood was exhuberant around me, and it 
naturally found personal response in my daily intercourse 
with many new made friends. I became a member of a 
Greek letter fraternity whose festivals, while innocent, or 
proper enough socially, were not just what they ought to 
be, measured by the standards of " piety " I had brought 
with me from my home and my home-church. I became 
also an active, energetic member of the Union Philosophical 
Society, one of the two literary fellowships which compre- 
hended on their rolls the students of the College. My 
general reading, for the first time, went largly into fiction. 
I had special and most enjoyable sessions with Fenimore 
Cooper, Washington Irving, and Captain Marryat. 

In the autumn of 1 860, a group of students, of which 
I was one, indulged in a festival trip to Harrisburg, and 
took part in a welcome reception to the Prince of Wales, 
afterwards the British King, Edward VII., then on tour in 



1860-61 



AT DICKINSON COLLEGE 



33 



America. The Prince seemed to be a boy very much 
like ourselves ; rather diffident, possibly shy ; but our un- 
animous judgment was that we liked him. 

At the end of the following February, we indulged in a 
like " spree " to see Abraham Lincoln, who was to make 
a stop at the State Capital on the way to his inauguration 
as President of the National Union. We were able to get 
a good sight of him, and I was quite near to him ; but he 
was, evidently, kept well surrounded by a group of friends. 

Throughout the second Dickinson year, I thought far 
more of the coming sectional struggle among the States of 
our Union than of any thing else ; and when the Civil War 
was actually threatened, I became a member and an officer 
in a company of student-militia, organized that we might be 
made familiar with company drill and the manual of arms. 

The increasing drift of the Nation towards its mighty 
struggle so impressed and agitated me, that when, after the 
attack upon Fort Sumter, the President called for 75,000 
volunteers for the defence of the Union, I immediately en- 
listed in a company forming at Carlisle. That attempt to be 
a soldier, however, lasted but for a few hours. My father, 
in response to a telegraphic announcement of my enlist- 
ment, sent the answer, " You must not go. Your Mother," 
and himself appeared in Carlisle that afternoon. He 
cancelled my enrollment at once, and took me back with 
him to Chambersburg, a thoroughly humiliated youth, far 
from being in a religious state of mind. 

Very soon my career as a student at Dickinson College 
was closed, and a new period in Collegiate education was 
begun elsewhere. 

I have very few letters written while I was at Dickinson. 
But looking back over this initial stage of my College 



34 FROM CREED TO FAITH PART I 

career, remembering it as correctly as I now can, apparently 
the chief positive effect of my experiences then, was the 
protection it provided me at a very sensitive age against a 
possible morbidity of religions emotion ; so far, at least, as 
a spontaneously liberty-loving, intellectually generous and 
inquisitive nature could be endangered. Also, I think, the 
stay at Dickinson enlarged my mental horizon enough to 
disclose a somewhat wider intellectual domain than that of 
which I had perception in the closing years of my child- 
hood. 

I. 

EARLY RECORD OF NATURAL LIBERALISM. 

As a good evidence of this mental widening, I recall a 
Class composition which I prepared in the second Dickin- 
son year. Its theme was " Beverence for the Beligious 
Principle in all its Developments'' Among the judgments 
given in this boy production were these : — 

" Bigotry in any form must be contemplated with pity 
and disdain. I have no sympathy with a spirit which 
would scorn man's weakest efforts for spiritual improve- 
ment. The religious principle, existing as it does in every 
human heart, — the mark of its high origin, the connecting 
link binding man to God, — should command the most 
profound respect. 

Whether beheld in the Christian philosopher whose 
powerful intellect pierces far into the boundless domain of 
knowledge, or in the ignorant slave who cannot even read 
the Divine message which assures him of immortality ; 
whether in the poet who consecrates genius to the cause 
of virtue, or in the rough seaman whose only music is the 
tempest's roar ; whether in the zealous Puritan or in the 
calm spirit of the enlightened Christian, it is still the proof 
of man's higher destiny, the manifestation of his nobler 
being. 

However marred by credulity and fanaticism, it is 



1361 



AT DICKINSON COLLEGE 



35 



too sacred to be torn from its deep resting place in the soul 
and rudely trampled under the foot of the scorner. Far 
better to be the sincere, though ignorant, worshipper, than, 
like the Prophet of Khorassan, to conceal under a glittering 
veil, the features of a demon. Let us reverence the heaven- 
born fire on the heart's altar, whether burning with a clear, 
strong radiance, or dimmed and blackened by the smoke 
of superstition." 

While I was at Carlisle, however intermittent or feeble 
my zeal as a professed Christian may have been, I was 
never so weakened that regular attendance at Church and 
observance of other duties as a Church member were 
interrupted. But there were long periods when I was 
not very devotional, and not very studious of the books of 
spiritual culture which I had set apart for daily reading. 
I thought but little of the doctrines of my inherited 
''Confession of Faith." But also, neither " rationalism 99 so 
called, nor, certainly, skepticism had any part in my 
mental occupations, one way or another. "Whatever 
I thought of theological problems, when I thought oi 
them at all, did not take me outside the Creed I had been 
taught. Moreover, all the time I bore with me, more 
or less consciously, the fact that I had been set apart for 
the Christian ministry. This consciousness had become 
involved in my personal "make-up," and, in good time, I 
was confident, it would be given full way. 

But, allowing for this fact, I look back upon those 
initial College days, as being in the main the time when, 
as a normally developing boy, I was happily a participant 
in the ordinary work and play of other boys who were 
much like me ; and when, without being a leader, I held 
an honorable place among my fellow-students in the 
College curriculum. 



36 



FBOM CBEED TO FAITH 



PART I 



2 

At Princeton College. 

I passed the exciting summer of 1861 in Chambersburg. 
The days were filled with news of the events of the opened 
war of the " Southern Confederacy " against the National 
Union. I fretted constantly over my inability to " go to 
the defense " of Washington, our Nation's capital, imperil- 
led by the nearer advance of the . Confederate army after 
the disaster at Bull Bun. 

I found some relief, however, in renewal of activity as a 
member of the home-church. I was re-awakened to my 
religious obligations, and I was much stimulated afresh 
by the 1 prospect then opened to me of continuing, at 
Princeton, my education for the ministry. 

In the autumn, to my great satisfaction, I was admit- 
ted to the Junior Class of Princeton College. Then, with 
some realizing sense of what I was doing, I began definite 
preparation for my accepted life-work. A season of 
" revival " befel the College that autumn and winter ; and, 
with many College mates, my religious emotions were 
vividly aroused. Eeligious thinking and practice, as I 
understood it then, became the most prominent factor in 
my daily living, I took a leading part in local mission 
Sunday School work, and was prominent in the conduct 
of the Philadelphian Society, the special organization in 
the College supported for the culture of the religious life of 
the students. 

It happened that I spent the winter vacation of 1861-62, 
in Washington City. With that opportunity I visited 
many of the camps and some of the field hospitals, doing 
a little here and there to help the sick and wounded. 



1861-62 



AT PRINCETON COLLEGE 



37 



a. Religious Experiences at Princeton :.— Upon my 
return to College I became thoroughly aroused, religiously. 
I think that I shall not be misunderstood by the friends 
who read these pages, in repeating here some sentences 
written to my parents then. They have more than a 
merely personal significance. Soon after " the New 
Year," 1862, I wrote,— 

" I hope and believe that I am now a far different 
person. God has graciously poured his Holy Spirit into 
my soul, and I feel free indeed in Christ Jesus, my 
Redeemer. This may appear strange; but I left home 
with the firm resolve that if He would spare me to reach 
Princeton, I would seek Him until I found Him, surely. 
I have reached that glorious result, I do believe. Oh ! 
would I could have felt in Washington what I feel here. 
Then, perhaps, there would be many a poor, sick soldier 
to bless me. We have great promise for a good work in 
the College. Pray for us." 

In March, in one of my letters, I pathetically lamented 

to " My dear Parents" that ; — 

" I have such a dreadful, sinful nature." - - - - " I 
must become a true, earnest, working Christian. I must 
feel that I am engaged in a warfare. I must war against 
every sin, such as Pride and Ambition. The former I 
cught never have, and the latter with me is not sanctified. 
I never will rest until I am altogether the Lord's. I can 
not be idle when there is a Heaven to gain. I cannot 
see others going to ruin unwarned." 

A month later, I wrote in answer to some advice that 

my father had given me," not to study too hard, and not 

to bother about foreign missions] " — 

" As to the former advice," I answered " I do not think 
I will hurt myself studying, although I am determined to 
become a good Greek scholar, if the Lord gives me strength 
and life, no matter how much labor it may require." (My 
desire then to understand the original text of the New Testa- 



38 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART 1 



ment was very great) . " As to the latter, I have come to 
the determination to do no planning myself, but to let the 
Lord take care of me and place me where he will. I 
will be willing to go as a missionary, if the Lord choose to 
call me to that work. I am willing to stay here, if He 
places me here. I want to feel my will so entirely swal- 
lowed up in His that I shall be perfectly willing to go 
or stay, as He appoints. 

I am often led to think that the motives which would 
make me a missionary are not right ; that they are of my 
own choosing and not of God's. But woe ! is me, if I 
am called to go to the Heathen and refuse. I am sealed 
as the Lord's. I am bought with a price. My will is not 
my own. You have no longer any claim on me. You 
gave me to God long ago, — to be His, I hope, for eternity 
— body and soul, time, influence, all interest in my earthly 
relations, in fact my all He tells me to leave all and 
follow Him. It is, in one view, hard. But so it is. And 
if He tells me to ' go into every land and preach His glad 
tidings ' I must do it. If the cry comes from stricken 
China, India, Africa or elsewhere, I must go. You must 
pray that the Lord will enable all of us to be resigned to 
His will We must not look at time, but eternity. We 
do not live for time but for eternity. " 

Much more kindred sentiment, prompted by the same 
exalted mood, appears in this letter, but it is not relevant to 
the present story. The whole of my home correspondence 
that year should be read as an instructive illustration of the 
enormous power exercised among the followers of the 
popular " Orthodoxy " of Christianity, by the unnatural, 
or anti-natural, other-ivorldly beliefs they have received 
concerning Human Nature, and about the Divine Being 
and Government. It is perfectly true that, even at the 
present day, kindred abnormal, irrational misdirections of 
man's spiritual nature hold in distressing subjection many 
otherwise wholesome-souled men and women. 



1861-62 AT PRINCETON COLLEGE 39 

b. Spiritual and Intellectual Limitations. — In my 
relations with fellow students during the time of this 
exalted and abnormal mood, inevitably I became known 
as "a Christian." But I observe, in reading the many 
letters of College mates which are preserved in my Class 
" autograph books," that this religious reputation did not 
carry. with it any offensive "sanctimoniousness." I did 
not lose my characteristic cheeriness outwardly, or sacrifice 
my love of comradeship. I maintained a good reputation 
in Whig Hall, in the gymnasium, and in various of the out- 
of-door athletics, and country sports. But in private, I re- 
member, I read daily and widely in books of devotion, of 
religious- biography, of Biblical commentary, and of doc- 
trinal exposition. 

I became interested in philosophic writings which bore 
upon the profounder problems of mind and soul, as means 
co-operating with my distinctively religious books ; of 
course, however, in speculations which came from the pens 
of Orthodox thinkers. 

I was instinctively attracted to natural science, too ; but 
my ventures in its departments were made under the 
guidance of a favorite teacher and friend, Professor 
Arnold Guyot, whose exposition of " the harmony " 
of the Book of Genesis with the discoveries of Geolo- 
gical Science charmed me. He made me feel intel- 
lectually bold. In a measure, I was affected in like manner 
by our college astronomer, Professor Stephen Alexander, 
whose lectures on the " Nebular Hypothesis" gave me, yet 
farther, assurance that I had been put en rapport with 
Science, as a real helper and strong support of Bevelation. 

Above all, however, I thought that in some writings of 
Di\ Archibald Alexander, and of Dr, Charles Hodge, which 



40 



FEOM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



I read into now and then, I was prospectively in posses- 
sion of inexpugnable expositions of my ancestral " creed " 
as the divinely revealed truth. I felt confident that in them 
I was the recipient of statements of the great doctrine of 
"Divine Sovereignty," and of its stupendous consequences 
as set forth in the Westminster "Confession of Faith, " which 
would confirm the doctrine without any questionings 
that would seemingly endanger my future allegiance to it. 

Eecalling further that memorable winter, I am obliged 
to conclude that if there ever was a time when my religions 
experience, considered as a reflex of thought and feeling, 
became mntvholemme and carried *ne to the verge of, if not 
into, spiritual morbidity, it was then. Self-consciousness, 
and a sensitive, questioning introspection were continuous 
and acute. I thought of myself as being within an arena 
witnessing a constant conflict of my good with my evil 
thinking and desire. I suffered from much self-condem- 
nation, — often without real reason, I now am sure. I 
constantly sought relief in prayer, in penitence, and in 
penance ; frequently rejoicing over "answers to prayer," or 
lamenting over a sense of " divine forgiveness " delayed. 

About that time, I think it was, I came across the 
" Memoirs of Eobert Murray McCheyne," the life-record 
of a highly cultivated, most spiritually minded young 
Scottish clergyman, whose vivid religious sensitiveness, 
aspiring longings, tender and gracious interpretations of 
the awful and terrible Creed of our common ancestral 
Church, won me to a daily reading of his letters and other 
writings. For years these " Memoirs " were my most 
prized vade mecam. 

With the coming of the summer vacation in 1862, the 
question of how to occupy my time through it became of 



0 



1862 



AT -PRINCETON COLLEGE 



41 



considerable importance. I could not content myself with 
an idle summer at home, restless as I was about my duty 
to our distressed country. 

c. Attempt to be a Colporteur, — My Presbyterian 
minister-uncle had urged me to come for the vacation to 
his parish on Long Island, New York, and begin 
practical training for the ministry by circulating religious 
literature among his people. 

I hesitated, under a strong desire to do something for the 
soldiers " at the front." But when, at length, the wish to 
do army w 7 ork, or to enter the army, seemed to be finally 
refused by my parents, I consented to take up with my 
uncle's project. I received from the Presbyterian Board of 
Publication a commission as colporteur ; my " field of labor 
to be Long Island, New York." What happened there- 
after is best told in a hurried, impulsive letter written 
to my parents early in July from my uncle's home : — 

" I have an object in writing this to you which will 

no doubt be a surprise. When Uncle wrote to me 

to take a position as colporteur, I consented to do so, 
feeling that, perhaps, that was the best way in which I 
could glorify my Maker. Yet, my desires often ran in a 
far different channel. 

I came here, and on Monday entered upon my work. 
I was at it but two hours and grew tired of it. I was not 
discouraged, but I felt as if I were not in my right sphere. 
However, I determined to go ahead. 

Tuesday morning I started out with a brave heart and 
a huge basket of new books on one arm. I first went 
into a doctor's house. " Oh ! yes." " Pleased " that I 
had "called." But " didn't want any just then," and so 
on. I went on, and sold a little ten or fifteen cent book 
here and there. - - - Most of the people I met felt 
above the poor " pedlar." - - - Well, I went on with 
a humiliated heart, and, soon after, I came to a place where 



42 



FEOM CBEED TO FAITH 



PABT I 



a dog got at me rather violently, yet not dangerously. A 
woman came to the door and chased him away, and said 
" That dog always barks at pedlars." 

But I went on. People who would have paid me 
extreme deference at any other time now treated me 
as far below them. I went to 'a rich man's house/ and 
he almost drove me away. 

Many other things, which I will not describe, happened 
to me. By evening my foot was rubbed sore, and I was 
physically nearly done for. My basket must have weigh- 
ed nearly forty pounds. But these things are what I 
deserve for my proud heart. I need humbling. Well, 
next day I was laid up. To-day I am all right again, 
except for my foot. 

So, you have your son's first experience at colportage. 
It has done me gcod. I have learned that human nature 
is unjust, and that I am proud. My experience is 
somewhat laughable, but true. However, the servant is 
not above his Lord, and my position is not worse than I 
deserve. 

I have every comfort with Uncle, and my trials 
are only in this contact with people. From what I have 
seen, I think I am not fitted to do this work. Besides, 
nobody wants to buy. " Times is too hard," and, " We 
have plenty of books," are the excuses everywhere. The 
war has stopped everything else. But to come to the 
point." 

I can remember even now, somewhat, my state of mind 
during that experience. The hardships of that primary 
lesson, which I had undertaken to learn by way of 
preparation for my life's vocation, were made far more 
severe, I am confident, by my special mental condition at 
the time. It was not my way, when meeting difficulties, 
to run away from them. Other influences made me wish 
" to quit " that home-mission work. For this reason it 
was that the letter, from which I have been quoting con- 
tinued,— 



1862 



AT PRINCETON COLLEGE 



43 



" I said my mind is not at rest. Well, it is not ; and I 
am going to be frank and tell you why. I wish you to 
receive it frankly, and know that I am in earnest, and 
mean what I say. Since I have been kept — justly — from 
entering the army, it has been a ruling desire with me, 
always, to do some good to the brave men who have gone 
to fight for the preservation of your home and my rights. 
God's voice calls me to assist them in what way I can. I 
have given myself, I trust, to God ; and no matter what I 
may do for Him He will take care of me. When called 
to colportage I went reluctantly, because I felt some duty 
more prominent than it pressing upon me. But I pushed 
it away, and went to my appointed work. 

" This morning, while reading of the terrific battles 
which occurred lately, and of the sufferings of the wound- 
ed, and noticing appeals for help, I expressed the feelings 
of my heart in a slight way. Uncle immediately told me 
that if all my energies were not in colportage, and I liked 
anything else better, I had better stop it at once, and get 
to work where my soul, — heart as well as body, — were 
engaged. I spoke of going to the Jiospitals as a nurse. 
He said, if that was my true feeling, to go by all means. 
Aunt thinks I am not fit. 

" But this is what I think ; and I feel to be my 
imperative duty, immediately, when every man must 
forget everything else and work for the beloved Union. 

Almost all the hospitals are filled with the dying and 
wounded of our battles The nurses, though there 
are many noble exceptions, have taken their positions as a 
matter of mere business, to be paid for it. Many a poor 
fellow is disregarded and passed by, out of neglect. This 
must not be. Christ-like love should guide the nurses ; 
and every Christian young man in this country who 
cannot enter the ranks is called upon to minister his mite 
to his wounded brethren. Let the rough nurses shoulder 
the musket, and their places be filled with those who love 
to do good for its own sake, and who love the souls of 
dying men. Men are entering the hospitals who are fast 
closing the scenes of life, Perhaps some kind hand is 
there to ease their pain. But where is the voice to 



44 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



wbisper to the dying, of Jesus? I must contribute my 
little love of Jesus to the salvation of such souls. 

" Let me take my position among our noble wounded 
and sick. I feel it my duty, and really I ought to go. I 
do not care where I go ; — to a city hospital or a hospital 
transport." 

This hastily written pleading of a boy, just become 
nineteen years old, was much longer and increasingly 
earnest. Its closing words were u You surely can't say, 
No!" 

But " No ! " was the answer I received. 

I. 

A YEAR AS A SOLDIER. 

Soon afterwards T was in Chambersburg ;— called home 
to stay for the remainder of my summer's vacation. 

Then came the fateful national crisis which followed 
repeated disasters to the armies of the Union during that 
month of July, 1862. My enforced inaction, while I was 
longing to do something for the country, aroused in me 
an intolerable self reproach ; — and I began to plead with 
all earnestness for the privilege of service in, or with, the 
army. At length, under my persistent pleadings, especial- 
ly enforced by the portentous crisis of those weeks, my 
mother's resistance gave way. 

The distress of that time can not be told. My 
mother was seriously a nervous invalid. I learned only in 
later years that I was not mindful enough, then, of that fact. 
But, at the time, I felt under compulsion to enter the army 
that was struggling to save the Union. 

So, at last it happened, I was allowed to become 
one of the volunteers asked for by the President for a nine 
months service. The immediately deciding fact which 




At Princeton College: and in the Army 
of the Union, 1863 



46 



FBOM CBEED TO FAITH 



PABT I 



that some of these men were habituated to a theological 
liberalism much larger than that exercised by the Church 
people I had known. I did not meet any among these new 
acquaintances who were avowedly " unorthodox," or 
" infidel " ; but several of them had doctrinal views with 
which I had either no familiarity, or which I had heard 
of chiefly that I might distrust and avoid them. 

Without any conscious weakening in my allegiance to 
the Old School Presbyterian "Confession," I came to have 
an inspiring fellowship with some of these New School 
New England Congregationalists. I think that I can 
refer to some aquaintanceships made then, a consider- 
able expansion of my intellectual horizon, and an increased 
indulgence towards sincere men who held other beliefs 
than those which I had been reared to think of 
as " Gospel truth." 

I was not yet capable of perceiving that my professed 
beliefs were not, in any real sense of the word, my personal 
Faith. I held, and I was ready to defend, a series of doc- 
trines as the embodiment of my faith, but I did not know 
that they were, in fact, only the doctrines of the Creed into 
whose possession I had been born, and which had been inter- 
preted for me by my parents and instructors. These beliefs 
were treasured heritages, receiving a loyal allegiance ; they 
were not personal acquisitions, won by study,— by a pur- 
posed research ; they were not my own convictions, instinc- 
tive or reasoned. Like all other children, I was growing to 
maturity with my religious thinking dominated by tbespecial 
traditions which had been carried onward from past time and 
brought to me by my family and teachers. I was being led 
towards my adult intellectual age without having had any 
personal choice concerning the way over which I was going. 



1863 



RETURN TO PRINCETON 



47 



Of course, an inherited creed is not to be considered 
untenable, or baseless, because it is an inheritance. Never- 
theless, the fact must be acknowledged that my Creed was 
composed of beliefs which others, in the far or near past, had 
won for themselves, and which by bequest had been perpet- 
uated for me and for multitudes of mankind in the institutions 
which they had founded, or supported. This momentous, 
fundamental fact I could not know, or understand, in my 
childhood and youth. And I could not, as all others can 
not, until well towards mature years, do any thing towards 
making it serviceable as a part of personal intellectual 
development. 

So then, at the time of which I write, 1 teas folloiving 
the way laid for me by my ancestors and the instructors 
chosen for me. I was affected by my own experiences only 
so far as changing circumstances were beginning to disclose 
a life in the world larger than, and differing from, that 
which I had known, and were inducing a kindly indul- 
gence towards those in w r hom, with differing doctrinal 
beliefs, I saw much that was also true and very good. 

d. Return to Princeton. — In the autumn of 1863 I 
was again at Princeton, having returned that I might 
finish the Collegiate course. This year, as a Senior, I passed 
without undergoing any special change in my religious ex- 
periences. My personal religious habits, Sunday School, 
Church, and Philadelphia!! Society work, were resumed. I 
think I w T as somewhat conscious of having had a real 
expansion in scope of thought, and of an increase in 
sympathetic regard for my fellow men as Christians, 
though there might be much difference of belief between 
them and me. I did not, however, question the value 
of the Presbyterian " Confession of Faith " as the highest 



48 



FBOM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



and most complete interpretation of the " Divine Eevela- 
tion " and of the " Way of God with Man." 

II. 

ORATION AT GRADUATION. 

In 1864, I was graduated from College. The theme I 
chose for the part assigned me at the " Commencement " 
exercises was quite characteristic of my mood then. 

"A Good Cause - Maketh a Stout Heart." 

This oration was only a crudely phrased proclamation of 
the convictions of a very immature youth. It is not worth 
reproduction as a whole, now. But, as it indicates well 
the dominant motive force of my youth ; and may, more- 
over, be regarded as a way- mark for my conduct in the 
most important movements that have occurred in an 
unusually eventful mental and spiritual career, I will quote 
somewhat from it. 

At the outset, I personified Truth and Error as " two 
elementary, antagonistic Powers, pervading the entire 
moral creation. " 

" Their great field of contention/' I declared, " lies in 
the reason and free-will of man." "To-day the conflict 
wages fiercely. - - - Truth and Error, each mustering 
mighty armed hosts, are in deadly grapple." 

" The cause of Truth is the cause of Good. A good 
cause makes the weak and fainting human heart strong 
and invincible. A good cause will make a stout heart." 

Then I sought to show why this claim is tenable : — 

1. " A good cause will banish fear/ 9 1 asserted. " The 
long roll of heroes and hero-martyrs who have braved 
even death for Truth's sake shows this." 

2. Moreover," a good cause inspires perfect frankness. 
Error dwells in the clouds of deceit. Truth presents a 



1864 



GRADUATION FROM COLLEGE 



49 



bold front in the clear light of frankness. In fearlessness 
there is frankness ; in frankness there is strength/' 

3. Again, "a good cause arouses earnestness." "The 
slave of Error may contend with diabolic desperation for 
his cause, but heroic earnestness is his alone who defends 
the holy Cause of Truth. " 

4. Then, " from fearlessness, frankness, and earnestness, 
springs consistency " Let a man be absorbed by a 
desire to promote a good cause, and his life will be ever 
onward and unswerving/' 

5. " Thereby he will bsfirm." "No gleam of better 
things may penetrate the gathering gloom of the contest, 
yet his trust never wavers.'' 

6. And " finally, a good cause makes a stout heart, be- 
cause it renders its advocate happy. Happiness is an element 
of strength. Happiness is his only who is conscious of the 
justice of his cause, and is confident of final success. He 
looks forward with a joyful heart to the certain time when 
the victory shall be Truth's/' 

I add to these fragmentary excerpts the peroration in 
full. 

" Let us, then, give our powers to some Good Cause. 
Let us enlist heartily, strike fearlessly, openly, earnestly, 
consistently and firmly ; battling with happy, hopeful 
hearts. Error will soon lose its vigor. The fearful looking 
forward to judgment, the deceit, desperation, wavering 
and misery of its advocates will lead to its complete over- 
throw. We may not live till this is accomplished : but we 
can cheerfully, give our weapons to those who follow us, and 
leave the field with the assurance that all will yet be well. 
A good cause is the cause of Truth. Truth is omnipotent. 
It is the very essence of God. Then, let us live and die 
with perfect confidence that victorious garlands will one 
day be wreathed around the calm, white brow of Godlike 
Truth : and in a higher and better life we shall share in 
the rewards of her victories." 

With this aspiring declaration of an Ideal, as indicative 
of personal purpose, my career as a College student was 
closed. 



50 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



3. 

JBetween College and Seminary, 

I. 

WITH THE UNITED STATES CHRISTIAN COMMISSION. 

I spent the summer of that year, 1864, again with 
the Army of the Potomac, then under command of 
General Grant, and laying siege to the Confederates at 
Petersburg. I had volunteered, for evangelistic and 
hospital ivork, as a member of the United States Christian 
Commission. 

Much of my time was at first spent in the siege trenches ; 
later, chiefly in hospitals with the wounded and sick. 
For a while I was assigned to the typhoid hospitals, where 
I saw much pathetic suffering and many deaths. Then, after 
the explosion, on the 30th of July, of the mine that had 
been laid under the Confederate works, and which was so 
disastrous to our forces, I served some Fifth Corps surgeons, 
for two days and nights, on the field, in four hundred 
and more serious operations. For a long time after- 
wards, I was in attendance in the hospitals, nursing the 
wounded, besides doing what I could to comfort, and to 
serve in other ways, those who must die. 

That summer's experiences affected mij religions life chief- 
ly by deepening my conviction of the personal, the essen- 
tial importance for every man, of religious faith and hope. 
Some most impressive happenings, never to be forgotten, 
occurred during those weeks spent among sick and wounded 
soldiers. 

With the summer's close I left the army, to begin 
specific study for the ministry, under a vividly aroused 



1864-67 



AS THEOLOGICAL STUDENT 



51 



sense of the supremely vital calling to which my life had 
been consecrated. 

4. 

In the Northwestern Theological 
Seminary. 

It had been arranged, before my graduation from 
College, that I should follow the special studies required 
for the ministry, at the Western Theological Seminary in 
Alleghany, Pennsylvania. I matriculated there, with the 
opening of its sessions that autumn. 

It so happened, however, that I could not continue as 
one of its students. Chambersburg had been burned, at 
the close of July, by Confederate raiders under General 
McCausland. As a sequel to that terrible calamity, my 
parents, who w r ere among those who had suffered from it, 
removed to Chicago, and made their home, for the time being, 
with some relatives resident in that city. 

In Chicago, an excellent Old School Presbyterian Seminary 
had been established ; and my mother, still seriously ill, and 
never having accepted willingly my separation from home, 
urged me to take my theological course where I might be 
near her. For almost five years, I had been practically 
only a vacation visitor to my parents. 

In the mid-winter of 1864-65, consequently, I became a 
member of the Junior Class of the Chicago institution which 
in after years was renamed "McGormick Theological Sem- 
inary. " I was a student there until my graduation in 1867. 

L 

AGAIN WITH THE CHRISTIAN COMMISSION. 

' During my first Seminary vacation, I was agaio with the 
Union Army ; and again I was engaged in evangelistic hos- 



52 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



pital servim ^Thm time I went to the front beyond 
Nashville, Tennessee, to the soldiers who were under 
command of Major General George H. Thomas, whom I 
had known slightly at the " Carlisle Barracks," five years 
before, when he was "Major Thomas" of the Cavalry. Gen- 
eral Thomas in the preceding December had defeated and 
wholly incapacitated the Confederate forces under General 
Hood, thereby practically closing all offensive movements 
in that part of the country, and hastening the culmination, 
as a whole, of the successful defense of the Union. 

The closing events of the war were moving rapidly 
when I went to Tennessee. Just before I left Chicago, 
General Lee, at Appomatox, had surrendered the Army of 
Virginia to General Grant. 

A few days later, while crossing the Ohio river at Louis- 
ville, I heard of the assassination of President Lincoln, the 
night before ; and, that day, I witnessed memorable out- 
bursts of popular grief, and some of the vengeful anger 
which was aroused by that awful tragedy. 

Arriving at the front, I got news of repeated defeats, and 
of surrenders, of the armies of the Confederacy, all along 
the great lines of battle. Not many days afterwards, we 
heard of the ignominious death of the President's assassin, 
Booth ; and the capture and imprisonment of Jefferson 
Davis, the Chief of the Confederacy. 

I worked for some weeks among the hospitals, which 
were still necessitated at the front. But they were grad- 
ually closed. 

Before I had returned to Chicago, the American Civil 
War had come to an end. And the United States, saved 
from disunion, were entering upon their present marvellous 
era as a thoroughly federated Nation* 



186467 



AS THEOLOGICAL STUDENT 



53 



In <; Part Four," as said before, I have gathered a good 
deal of material connected with my many and much varied 
experiences during this ever memorable interstate struggle, 
under the heading " Memorials of the Civil War." Those 
chapters will, I think, have far more than a personal in- 
terest for my friends, and for others, -too* 



54 



CHAPTEE THIED 
MENTAL UNEEST 

AS A 

THEOLOGICAL STUDENT 

For the next two years, my time was devoted to a specific 
training in the Northwestern Theological Seminary for my 
chosen profession. No longer distracted by the Civil War, 
I gave the prescribed studies faithful attention. I sought, 
never with so much earnestness, to become a competent 
exponent of my avowed beliefs. 

Before long, however, I began to be seriously concerned 
over some of the doctrines I had received from my teachers, 
especially those which presented the Calvinistic conception 
of the " Plan of Salvation." 1 teas not inclined to deny, 
I ivished rather to understand why the doctrines must be 
true. To my surprise, I had found among my Chicago 
teachers less an appearance of sympathy with differing 
ways of theological thinking than I had seen among the 
professors at Princeton. Noticeably, such liberalism to- 
wards "Science" as that, for example, of Arnold Guyot, 
or of Stephen Alexander, seemed to be unfelt among the 
members of the Chicago Seminary's faculty. 

As the winter advanced, my mental unrest increased. 
But I was faithful in attendance at Church and at our devo- 
tional meetings. I was active in the City Mission work. 
I often met Mr. Dwight L. Moody, and was several times 
a speaker at his " Illinois Street Mission." 



At the Northwestern Theological 
Seminary, 1866 



1S66 



LICENSED TO PREACH 



In my second year, I especially enjoyed listening 
to Professor David Swing, newly come to the pulpit 
of Westminster Church. There was no question then 
of his Orthodoxy. He was popular because he was 
interesting, and generous, and broad in his preaching. In 
my Senior year he invited me once to preach for him. 

Throughout both those years I could not at any time 
have been called a " disbeliever," disturbed though I was 
over important articles in my inherited and cherished Creed. 

Licentiate of the Presbytery of Chicago. 

Towards the spring of 3866, I appeared before the 
Presbytery of Chicago as a candidate for a " license to 
preach." I was required to prepare various papers and to 
pass an examination to indicate my qualifications for the 
privilege I sought. 

1. The Latin Essay prescribed for me was on the ques- 
tion, " An Regenerate peccare po&sint? "Can the Regenerate 
sin ? " I sought, with the help I could get from accepted 
waiters, to prove that the truly regenerate human being 
does not, and can not, sin ; that when one, who has been 
actually " born again of the Holy Spirit," appears to do 
evil, it is "no longer he that sins but the evil that dwells 
within him." 

2. My Trial Lecture, which was an exposition of the 
opening verses of the First Psalm, under the title " True 
Blessedness realized in God ; " and my Probationary Ser- 
mon, on "Jesus as the Source of true Best for the Soul" 
were both accepted and approved. 

I intended to indicate some mental unrest by an answer 
which I made in the Oral Examination to w r hich I was 



56 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



subjected, but what I said was either unheard, or, if 
heard, was not considered of importance. 

At a meeting in Earlville, Illinois, on April 10th 1866, 
I was authorized " as a probationer for the holy ministry 
within the bounds of the Presbytery, or w T herever else I 
should be orderly called." That action, notwithstanding 
the formal withdrawal, afterwards, of my license to preach, 
because of a change of belief concerning certain theological 
dogmas, I have always regarded as my authoritative intro- 
duction into the Christian Ministry. 

a. The Summer at Depere, Wisconsin. — Five days 
later, the Presbyterian Board of Domestic Missions, at the 
request of the Presbytery of Winnebago, commissioned me 
to be, for six months, the stated supply of the pulpit of a 
small Presbyterian Church in Depere, Wisconsin. My 
Middle Year summer vacation was, consequently, spent as 
a licensed preacher. 

I 

FIRST OFFICIAL SERMON. 

The first sermon I delivered under ecclesiastical authori- 
ty I preached at Depere, taking for its text the Apostle 
Paul's sublime boast : — 

" I AM NOT ASHAMED OF THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST." 

I should like to embody this sermon in full among these 
personal " Memorabilia," that I might show to friends of 
later years how loyally I had received and sought to in- 
terpret my inherited Creed when I began to exercise my 
life's vocation, in an officially recognized station. But I 
will content myself with some indication of its movement ; 
— repeating a few of its distinctive passages. 



1S66 



FIEST OFFICIAL SERMON 



57 



I began the sermon with a description of Tarsus, Saul's 
home ; sketching in a few paragraphs Saul's earlier life, his 
conversion, and his consecration to Christ's Gospel, which 
he proclaimed ever thereafter as "the power of God unto 
salvation to every one that believetk," though it was 
" foolishness to the Greek," and " to the Jew a stumbling 
block." 

" To Paul," I said, " had come the good news of the 
very Son of God, of God incarnate : — glad tidings of great 
joy from a merciful God to a depraved, wretched, dying 
world. Its bearer was God-man, who, in the incompre- 
hensible union of divine and human natures, had 1 borne 
the griefs of the whole world and was wounded for its 
transgressions.' - - - He was God-man : — man in union 
with God, that his work might have the worth of the 
Godhood and, also, that man might be saved by man. 
In fact, Christ became accursed that man might escape im- 
pending wrath. The heart-rending agony of Gethsemane ; 
and the wrath of God, endured on the Cross, were but the 
consummation of Christ's humiliation, accepted for the 
accomplishment of the eternal Plan of Redemption." 

The Gospel, so I argued, was to Paul " the power of 
God unto salvation to every one that believeth." 

1. The Gospel shows, first, God's ability to save. All 
things are possible to God except denial of Himself. Infinite 
Justice demanded the death of every human creature : 
Infinite Love pleaded for their life. Unless Justice could 
be satisfied, no salvation was possible. Therefore, upon 
the only and well-beloved Son, — Son of God and Son of 
Man, — divine Justice wreaked the vengeance due to man. 
Justice was appeased and, so, man could be saved. 

2. Then, second, the Gospel shows God's power to save. 
The world lying in wickedness was in danger of eternal 
misery. Millions of intelligent creatures, God's own handi- 
work, created in his own image, had fallen and were ex- 
posed to eternal wrath. For these, salvation had been 
made possible. 

" Touch the eyes of him doomed to perpetual darkness 



58 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



and open them to the light ; make the dulled ear hear for 
the first time the words of loving friends and the har- 
monies of music ; give strength to the paralytic ; restore 
health to the sick ; remove gloom from the melancholy ; give 
hope to the despairing, joy to the mourner ; open the prison 
door ; go among the low haunts of towns and cities and 
replace vice and poverty with virtue and riches ; break off 
the manacles of the slave and bid the captive go free: 
stand by the death bed of one loved, and bid light again to 
the eye, glow to the cheek, and life and movement to the 
stiff limbs ; and you can appreciate earthly salvation. But 
the giving of holiness for pollution ; righteousness for sin ; 
salvation for the eternally lost ; and heaven for the hell- 
deserving, who can understand ? Yet, this is the salvation 
the Gospel proclaims. 

In Christ's side the flaming sword that guarded the way 
to the Tree of Life is buried ; and the entrance to Paradise 
is w T ide and free to those who believe He is their Saviour. 
By His death the Temple veil is rent in twain, and we 
can enter the very Holy of Holies, and at the Mercy Seat 
lie in the full light of the Shekinah." 

3. But then, farther, the Gospel, though it is the power 
of God unto salvation, is this power only to him that 
believeth. Man is justified only by faith. Good words 
and good works can not do it. 

Nevertheless, let us understand that faith without works 
is dead. Pure faith is to believe that God, in His mercy to 
the world, gave Christ to endure the curse to which it was 
doomed When this is realized, pure faith urges the soul 
towards perfection in the way of obedience. It develops 
hope that, through Christ, salvation has come ; and it 
compels consecration of all the energies to the development 
of love, the highest form of faith. Faith begets love, — 
love to God for His love to you ; and love to perishing man, 
— perishing, ignorant of his unutterable blessings. Hence 
comes a life devotion : — eagerness to know the will of God 
and alacrity to do it when known ; desire to know the 
character of the Saviour, and constant searching for some 
means whereby to glorify Him ; — a crucifixion of self and 
an entire consecration to His service. This is Christian 



1S66 A SEQUEL TO THE SERMON 59 

perfection. But few attain it while beset in this sinful 
world, yet every true Christian seeks it. Hence his 
constant prayer is, " Lord, increase my faith." 

So, to every one who has faith, and whose faith works 
towards this perfection ; to all such, the Gospel of Christ is 
the power of eternal salvation. This is the glorious Gospel 
that Christ gave to the world ; and of this Gospel it was 
Paul's pride to boast." 

I closed the sermon with an earnest appeal to the 

" unconverted " among my hearers to accept this Gospel for 

themselves. The appeal took the form of an affectionate 

entreaty, — such form was characteristically instinctive with 

me, — but the appeal was fraught, too, in accordance with 

my guiding Creed, with the most solemn and portentous 

warnings. I declared, — — 

" It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living 
God ; and knowing the terror of the Law we persuade 
you." 

My last w 7 ords were those of a hymn which I hoped 
would be effective in arousing some tender conscience 
among those to whom the life and death of Jesus were 
familiar, as they were to nearly all who heard me. 

" Ashamed of Jesus! Yes! I may, 
When I've no guilt to wash away, 

2S"o tear to wipe, no good to crave, 
No fears to quell, no soul to save. 

Till then,— nor is my boasting vain,— 

Till then, I boast a Saviour slain. 
And O ! may this my glory be, 

That Christ is not ashamed of me." 

b. A Notable Sequence to the Sermon.— An incident 
following the preaching of that first official sermon gave 
me not a little concern, I had become quite sensitive, 
intellectually, because of the experiences of which I have 
already written. The solemn closing appeal, however, 
had been conscientiously made ; prepared in honest 



60 



FROM CREED '10 FAITH 



PART I 



accord with the course of the instructions which I had 
received continually from childhood up to that time. My 
special training for the ministry had been shaped under 
the intention of leading me to preach not only " the good 
news of salvation/' but to accompany that message with 
earnest warnings of the terrible consequences of refusal to 
accept the merciful Gospel. I was but doing my duty, 
therefore, when I said, in the closing appeal I had 
made to the " unconverted " among my hearers : — 

" I beseech you not to be ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, 
or refuse to accept it. Kemember, you must live forever. 
Listen to the word of God, ' Whosoever shall be ashamed 
of me and my words, of him shall the Son of Man be 
ashamed when He shall come in His Glory.' Your 
condition is fearful. To-morrow it may be too late to be 
saved : after death it certainly will be. Now, it is as 
though the Great Judge were holding you over the 
Pit of eternal misery. Only His long suffering power 
keeps you from falling into it. His cry is continually 
' Look unto me and be saved/ Do not continue to 
rebel. Do not refuse longer to look. Patience may soon 
cease. The Hand which now sustains you may be with- 
drawn, and you will sink into that awful abyss where 
Mercy cannot enter ; where Eemorse will sting ; Memory 
will gnaw, and the flame of Conscience will not be quenched 
forever/ ' 

These were dreadful words. I knew perfectly well that 
they were dreadful at the time I spoke them. But I had 
no good reason for doubting their truth, then ; and all 
the authority I recognized then had enjoined upon me 
the doctrine they taught, and had denounced doubt of 
them as, itself, the fruit of evil. 

When I gave the warning, I had in my possession some 
verses ascribed to one whom I, with hosts of others, levered 



1366 A NOTABLE TRACT 61 

as one of the most authoritative theological instructors 
of the time, — Dr. Archibald Alexander, recently deceased. 
The verses had long been circulated by the Presbyterian 
Board of Publication as a denominational tract. They 
had been given to me in childhood, and had aroused in me 
many anxious hours, As late as 1868, I received a copy 
of them from an interested correspondent, who wrote, con- 
demning me for having entered the Liberal Christian 
ministry and showing me what had probably become my 
fate. I did not quote these verses when I wrote the appeal 
and warning of that first sermon ; but the verses were vivid- 
ly in mind as I wrote. I have never forgotten their awful 
movement : — 

There is a time — we know not when,— 

A point we know not where, — 
Which marks the destiny of men 

To glory or despair. 

There is a line, by ns unseen, 

That crosses every path ; 
The hidden boundary between 

God's patience and His wrath. 

To pass that limit is to die- 
To die as if by stealth : 

It does not quench the beaming eye, 
Nor pale the glow of health. 

But on that forehead God has set 

Indelibly a mark, 
Unseen by man, for man, as yet 

Is blind and in the dark. 

Indeed, the doomed one's path below 

May bloom as Eden bloomed : 
He did not, does not, will not know* 

Or feel that he is doomed : — 

He feels, perchance, that all is well 

And every fear is calmed : 
He lives,— he dies,— he wakes in Hell, 

Not only doomed but damned* 

Oh, where, is that mysterious bourne 

By which our path is crossed; 
Beyond which God Himself hath sworn 

That he who goes is lost? 



62 



FBOM CKEED TO FAITH 



PART I 



My conscience, because of the dogma in this hymn, was 
naturally at ease when I had introduced my ministry to 
the Depere Church with the sermon I have outlined. But 
the event was not to pass without a surprising consequence 
to the young minister. Not long after this preachment, 
I met one of my new made friends, an Episcopalian, who 
having no church of his own near by, had become an 
attendant at the services of this frontier Society. He 
ventured to make a very serious protest to me against the 
threatening appeal with which my sermon had been closed. 
He asserted that, even were the doctrine of everlasting future 
punishment true, it was far from wise to proclaim it with 
the bald literalism I had used. I defended my office, of 
course. Nevertheless, I had in a measure already become 
prepared to admit that there might be good reason for his 
rebuke. Besides, what he said reminded me of a story 
related of my favorite and model preacher, Robert Murray 
McCheyne. It told of his meeting a minister friend who 
glibly said that he had preached on Hell, the day before. 
McCheyne did not answer for a few moments. Then, 
laying his hand upon his friend's shoulder, he asked, with 
tears in his eyes, " Oh ! did you preach it tenderly ? " 

The protest of my Episcopalian parishioner, however, 
did not so much arouse me sentimentally as awake to 
renewed energy much I had thought in the past, and 
that had been for some time lying dormant. 

Throughout that summer I served my office, as a Pres- 
byterian minister, conscientiously, and, I would have said, 
m loyal obedience to the training I had received. I had 
numerous conversations with my Episcopal friend, and with 
some others. Several of them were generously inclined 



1866 



DR. BUSHNEIil/s THEOLOGY 



63 



theologically. I was not aware of any special weakening 
of my own devotion to the Creed I had confessed. 

Afterwards, however, I could see that during those 
months my mental attitude towards the Calvinism of my 
inheritance had begun to he changed. Thitherto I had 
never ventured beyond a solicitous questioning of the Creed. 
Before I had returned to the Seminary my questionings 
had become positive doubts. 

c. First Knowledge of Dr. BushnelVs Theology. — I do 
not remember just how I came into contact with Eev. Dr. 
Horace Bushneli's books ; but one of them dealing directly 
with the doctrine of the Atonement fell into my possession 
that autumn. It started reflections w T hich w T ent far 
towards giving me mental relief. 

I was in no way desirous then of emancipation from my 
creedal inheritance as a whole. I cherished a good deal of 
satisfaction because of my family lineage, which was almost 
wholly Scottish ; and I had a large circle of kindred and 
friends which was almost entirely included 'in Calvinistic 
Churches. Naturally, I wished to keep within the beliefs 
and w T ays of my fathers. Dr. Bushnell, prospectively, 
gave me much needed relief ; and I felt at the same time 
that the modification and widening of theology which he 
w T as making for me, would leave me, for the larger part, 
still true to my inheritance. 

I was not fully committed, at least not consciously, to 
Dr. Bushnell's interpretation of the Atonement for some 
time after I returned to the Seminary and had begun the 
studies of the Senior year. But, not long after the opening 
of the session, it is fact that I was no longer a Calvinist who 
was merely troubled by solicitous questionings. 

My long held liking for New England and for New 



61 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



England people, I am confident, had nothing to do, worth 
serious consideration, with the relief I was finding in Dr. 
Bushnell's writings. However, a letter that came to me 
that autumn, from one who had the right to speak frankly, 
brought me these comments : — 

" I feared when you went West that you would fall under 
the influence of the New England religious views which 
prevail over a great part of the Northwest. Most of the 
dwellers in that region come from New England. Those 
views have always been latitudinarian, free thinking, 
'progressive' I have never had much liking for New 
England theology. - - - - Where God has not made his 
purpose clear, it hastens to help Him explain His meaning 
by making it accord with some 6 Yankee ' interpretation of 
the Divine purpose." 

Another letter from the same correspondent directly 
charged me with having " strayed from the path of right 
and duty " because of " association with those who teach 
a ' Progressive Christianity/ the followers of that kind of 
Christianity taught in the New England States. " 

This charge, how 7 ever, was not made not made with 
Unitarianism in the writer's mind. 

cl. Increase of Unrest. — In that autumn, it was, I 
carried my mental debate over the tenets of my inherited 
Creed concerning the "Divine Decrees " and the " Vicarious 
Atonement " to one of the professors in the Seminary ; a 
friend to whom I had at times previously given special 
confidence. But this venture was met with a severe 
rebuke. " These doubts," he asserted, " do not come from 
any fault in the doctrine. There is no trouble with the 
doctrine. The difficulty is in yourself. Your doubtings 
are the promptings of your depraved, sinful nature. Go 
to your room, and, on your knees, ask God to forgive 



1S66 



MENTAL UNREST 



65 



you." A letter from home came at about the same time 
that the conversation just repcatsd took place. In it I 
was asked,— 

" Have you ever thought that perhaps your 'conscien- 
tious* scruples: — the objections and difficulties that you 
have been so long and so fearfully fighting, — are but the 
creations and devices of the great enemy of ycur Saviour 
and your soul ; raised up and urged upon you for the very 
purpose of bringing about your downfall. Go to your 
God, and upon your bended knees wrestle with Him in 
prayer for your guidance, and for a decisive victory over 
the Devil. Go, too, to those whose pupil you are and 
plainly explain your difficulties, and seek the aid of their 
more experienced counsel with God's blessing ; and the 
light vou seek will not fail to come. They that seek shall 
find. If the countless thousands of God's ministers who 
have lived, and yet live, could believe, and teach, and 
confidently rely upon what the Bible taught, why can't 
you? - - - - I hope that God in His infinite mercy will 
enlighten your mind and guide your understanding." 

My mental unrest, however, against all wish and effort 
to the contrary, increased as the autumn passed. There 
happened then another bit of experience which affected, 
positively, my theological transition. Upon impulse one 
afternoon, I read Paul's Epistle to the Romans through, 
as though it were only a natural, personal effort of the 
Apostle to express his thoughts upon " faith in Christ." 
I tried to ignore, in the reading, my belief that the Epistle 
was an infallibly inspired message, through him, from 
God. The immediate effect was extraordinary. I arcse 
from the reading feeling that I had seen Paul's letter in a 
new light. I had never, thitherto, read any part of the 
Bible as though it were a product of natural human 
authorship. , Now, it had become illumined with meanings 
I never before had found in it. I was exhilarated, and yet 



66 



FROM CBEED TO FAITH 



PAHT I 



troubled over the discovery. From that time, I knew that 
my relation to the Epistles of the great Apostle and, 
therewith, to all the other New Testament writings had 
begun to change. 

Evidently, to judge from letters then received, my own 
letters had begun to tell of the increasing change I was 
undergoing. In the circle where no hesitation in opinion 
or judgment was necessary, many important letters were 
interchanged. Especially pertinent to these " Memories " 
is this one, from which I quote freely : — 

" I feel sorry to hear of your mental troubles. You can 
not, by searching, fathom the mysteries of Eevelation. 
God has given us, in the Old and and New Testaments, a 
revelation of His will in regard to Man. If, through your 
knowledge, you can satisfy yourself that any part of the 
received translation is erroneous, you would, of course, be 
justified in adopting what your knowledge of the original 
w T ould lead you to. But when you attempt to reconcile 
one doctrine with another, as declared in the Scriptures, you 
undertake to do that for which knowledge, as we have it, 
is utterly incompetent. We cannot try God's will, or 
purposes, by human reason. 

While I can not understand, I do not condemn ' Old 
Calvinism,' as you call it. I give great weight to the 
Fathers in the Church who lived much nearer God than I 
do, and had much better spiritual and temporal oppor- 
tunities to fathom the mysteries of the 1 Word ' than I 
have. Where I can not see as they saw, I trust that they 
are right. Their opinions and the continuous teachings of 
the Church should have great weight in the formation of 
any opinions, especially by so young and inexperienced a 
mind as yours/' 

e. Decision to become a Liberal Congregationalist. — 
Before that mid-w 7 inter had passed I was fully convinced 
that if my coming ministerial career were to have any 
satisfaction in it for aiyself, or to be in any honest way 



1867 FOR LIBERAL CONGREGATIONALISM 67 

useful to others, I must have a freer ecclesiastical relation- 
ship than that in which I had been reared. Nevertheless, 
all my instinctive impulses, and, especially, all my family 
and personal associations, led me to follow then, and 
always in my after experiences, as conservative a course as 
I could possibly take honestly, — that is, under the demands 
made by my conscience for truth. I had become much at 
ease mentally, with a larger knowledge of Dr. Bushnell's 
thinking. Besides, his unhampered freedom, as a minister 
among the Congregational Churches, gave me the stimu- 
lating hope that I, also, might find ample scope for my 
ministry in the pulpit of some Society of the Congregational 
fellowship. 

Much regret was expressed by some friends to whom I 
made this hope known. I met with no resolute opposi- 
tion from those who were nearest to me. They be- 
lieved that, though I should, as a Congregation alist, be 
separated from the Presbyterian ministry, I would still be 
at work within an accepted, Evangelical, ecclesiastical 
fellowship. A letter received from home, in comment 
upon my proposed association with the Congregational 
ministry, will make this part of my experience clearer. 

" That you have had mental struggles is doubtless true. 
But if others were blessed with victory and subsequent 
peace, so should you be. That God doubtless tries, as in a 
fiery furnace, those whom He desires to use for His service 
and glory is beyond doubt ; and that He, in due time, gives 
them peace and content is also the experience of His 
servants. Why should you have so much unrest, so much 
doubt, where others are at peace ? We now hope that 
the day of doubt is past : that you have secured the victory, 
and will now go on in the path He appears to have chosen 
for you. 

Pass through your Seminary course, and the field of the 



fi8 



FROM CREET) TO FAITH 



PART I 



world will then be before you. If, by that time, you feel 
that you can not enter our Church, we will cheerfully see 
you put on the ' armor of Christ ' under the banner of 
some Orthodox denomination." 

But another letter, from a very near relative then hold- 
ing a high position in one of the principal national 
organizations of the Presbyterian denomination, expressed 
much dissatisfaction with my proposed move : — 

' i You certainly do not appreciate the pain it has,. .ever 
given me to differ with you on so many and such radical 
points, as has been my lot. I have always felt, and now 
keenly realize, the danger of alienation, where I have 
earnestly, prayerfully, desired stronger cords of mutual 
affection and confidence. But, however harsh my letters 
may have seemed to you, they were prompted by the 
tenderest regard for your highest welfare in every respect 
in which you may stand related to yourself, your family 
and the Church. I have ever had a pride in you, and a 
jealousy that you might so develop in the symmetry of 
your character, physical, mental, spiritual, that you would 
be honored in doing a mighty work for the glory of the 
Master. - - - 

I am more grieved than a little to hear of your intention 
to go to a Congregational Church. I feel compromised in 
my official position. I have supposed that the Church in 
which you were trained had range sufficiently wide, and 
work sufficiently vaiied and pressing, to furnish a field 
adequate to all your energies. I offer no advice as none 
has been solicited. " 

2. 

Concerning an Important Personal Factor, 

This opposition to the momentous change then imminent 
in my career, especially as it was for the most part asso- 
ciated with much affectionate protestation, was painful to 
me, — inevitably very painful,— because of the very great 
strength of my attachment to those who opposed me. I 



1867 



IMPORTANT PERSONAL FACTOR 



69 



shrank from doing anything that would cause them 
distress. But then, because of other factors operative 
in my nature, I could not yield to their protests. 
Above all, it has been true of me, ever since boyhood, that, 
when I am once clearly convinced that I ought to do one 
thing rather than another, I am practically under an 
irresistible compulsion. Neither the fear, nor the lure, of 
consequences materially affects this ethical subjection, 
however much other influences, for the time, seem to 
make me vacillating, or indecisive. In the end, I obey 
as conscience commands. 

No one who knows me w T ell, I am confident, will read 
this self- judgment as a bit of empty boasting, or as mere 
self-glorification. But some may wonder why I give the 
judgment so pronouneed an emphasis in these "Memories." 
My reason is that, unless I comment upon it here, I can 
not satisfactorily realize one the chief purposes I have in 
telling this story. It is my wish to recall with some particu- 
larity and fulness several notable experiences. A few of 
the more important among them, at the times when I passed 
through them, I felt impelled to let pass without adequate 
explanation to my friends, though I well knew 
that I hazarded serious misjudgment towards myself. 
In making these events known now more fully and 
correctly, I think it needful to bring the trait just spoken 
of prominently into memory, especially in its interaction 
with some other forceful personal qualities. 

To this end I will interrupt my story for a while with 
frank comment upon what I think are personal charac- 
teristics, so far as they are needful to make the story 
properly intelligible, 

Every normal person, as a matter of course, indulges at 



70 



FBOM CREED TO FAITH 



PART 1 



times in self-reflection, and makes a more or less complete 
estimate of his own qualities, or characteristics. The 
estimate may, or, it may not, be correct ; but it becomes 
for each person the real measure for self-criticism, or self- 
appreciation. I venture to think that, if sincerely made, 
it has more of truth in it than most estimates made by 
others, despite Burns's much quoted couplet about seeing 
" oursels as ithers see us." 

I have already spoken of various personal characteristics 
which, I think, were noticeable in me as a child : — my 
exceptional physical vitality, for instance, and my love of 
adventure ; indisposition to provoke quarrels with my 
play mates, though fighting often for what I believed to 
be self-defense, or defense of others ; my acute self-con- 
sciousness and desire for approbation ; my mental in- 
quisitiveness ; excessive sensitiveness to the claims of 
affection, and my susceptibility to spiritual emotion. 

As I grew towards manhood these personal qualities 
became only the more pronounced. Because of an increasing 
sense of being " able to do things," I suppose that I must 
have often seemed to others to be self-willed and obstinate. 
But I am confident that, when I did not feel bound by 
some higher obligation, I was only too ready to yield my 
wishes to the desires of others. 

Those who showed affection could do practically as they 
pleased with me so far as merely my own wishes were 
hazarded. In fact, the influence of the affection of 
parents and of friends often seriously delayed the course of 
my needed development in youth ; by making me, for the 
time, irresolute and, upon occasion, even weak. Not 
infrequently my " amiability " opened the way for others 



1867 



IMPORTANT PERSONAL FACTOB 



71 



to my possessions and services which should to have been 
reserved for myself. 

Later, in early manhood, when really serious questions 
had to be answered, I was at times not a little embarrass- 
ed by personal predilections and attachments. So, w r hen 
I was compelled to begin the theological changes which at 
length had to be made, I sought to keep the break with 
those for whom I cared as small as possible. And as 
inevitable separations took place, the uppermost pleadings 
I made to friends were that our personal relations should 
not alter. Also, in the separations I made from them, it is 
notable that I never would go more than just beyond the 
stage where an imperative conscience had eased its 
demands. 

To that distance, however, I was under compulsion 
to go; and that far, whatever the cost, I did go. It 
is eminently true, that, at the last, when decision became 
inevitable, I could not disobey the demands which my 
sense of what I ought to do imposed. . 

As a consequence of the final decisions which were 
reached in these critical experiences, there was, despite my 
entreaties, an apparent loss, at times, of both friends and 
of prospective gains, pecuniarily and in desired stations. I 
am glad to say now, however, that this loss was generally 
more seeming than real. 

Beviewing my long life, I now see that, somehow, I have 
had, at some time, almost always ample compensation for 
the privations thus caused. Permanent alienations between 
me and old friends, because of my persistence in spite of 
their opposition, have been very few indeed ; and I have 
never long suffered from pecuniary loss,*' or from loss of 
position or office. 



72 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



a. An Illustrative Incident in the Princeton Days.—- 
Towards the close of my College course an incident occurred 
in our class politics which well illustrates the statements I 
have just been making about my dominating, or distinctive, 
personal characteristics. 

I had indulged somewhat, as contributor to our 
College magazine, in versifying ; and it was the general 
intention of my class-mates to elect, me the Poet 
for our Class-day exercises. I had no opponent. The 
choice of the Class Orator was also necessary. I happen- 
ed to prefer for this latter honor a class-mate whom I did 
not know very well personally, but who, I was convinced, 
would most fittingly represent us as Orator. A canvas of 
our class showed that, without my vote, the class would be 
evenly divided. I withheld an announcement of my choice, 
because all my closest friends w 7 ere pledged to the side 
which, I conscientiously felt, I must oppose. For a long 
time, notwithstanding all solicitation, I kept my decision 
to myself, not wishing to antagonize my intimate friends, 
and hoping all the while that the tie would somehow be 
broken. 

At last, when the time for the election had come and 
my decision could no longer be withheld, I announced, to 
the dismay of my friends, that I should vote for the candi- 
date to whom they were opposed. At the same time, in 
order that I might prevent, as far as possible, any further 
contention in the class, I declined absolutely to be con- 
sidered available for the office of Class Poet. 

My vote broke- the tie, and my friends were compelled 
to bear defeat. 

No one, I think, was quite so unhappy during that 
struggle as I was. But I simply could not do other- 



1864 



IMPORTANT PERSONAL FACTOR 



73 



wise, — so stern and rigid a tyrant was my conscience. 
I am not intending to say that I teas then, or that I have 
always, since then, been prompted to do ichat is right. The 
special fact 1 wish to make clear is that, when 1 have 
been led to judge one course rather than another to be the 
right one it has been imperative with me to go as this 
judgment directs. 

For a while I w T as forced to bear severe punishment from 
my class-mates because of my " obstinacy." I was, for 
some weeks, practically companionless and friendless. I 
declined to receive the laudations of the enemies of my 
friends, though I had wrought victory for them : and, with 
my former friends avoiding me, I was necessitated to " go 
it alone." 

But, the pleasant fact of which I have spoken, as being 
true after other like crises in my career, became evident in 
that College trouble before the day of our graduation had 
come. All my old time, particular friends voluntarily 
resumed their friendship with me ; and, in my Class- 
Autograph books I read, now, more references to that 
unfortunate incident, and more protestations of personal 
friendship because of it, than are connected with any other 
of our personal relationships. One class-mate, who had 
seemed for a while actually embittered because of his dis- 
appointment, wrote :— 

" Let me now say with all truthfulness that your con- 
duct in the political line last session is worthy of all praise." 

Another wrote,—" When w T e were about to bestow upon 
you the honorable appellation of Class Poet, you, from 
right motives, no doubt made another sacrifice of interest 
to those good principles which have ever characterized 
your course in College." 

Another wrote, " On one occasion you have been a sub- 



74 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



ject of which some would have made political capital. 
But from the dilemma in which you were placed— you 
escaped with great honor to yourself — though it may 
have been with personal sacrifice." 

Still another apologized for his temporary alienation, 
saying, " You know my circumstances and it is unneces- 
sary to bring up again the unpleasant associations of the 
past/' 

And yet another wrote, — " In behalf of one having no 
claims upon your sympathy, or support, you voluntarily 
sacrificed honor which awaited you. I will ever associate/' 
etc., etc.— 

But I need not repeat farther what this classmate wrote, 
or continue these tributes. I recall the details of this 
College affair that itmay illustrate the particular statements 
I have thought it pertinent to make here, — statements 
which I should like my friends to bear in mind when some 
other events in my career of much greater personal, and 
even of public, importance meet us in the pages to come. 

Whatever qualifications I may have had for the honor- 
able office which my classmates were to have given me, 
the only candidate for the position, I have never believed 
made me worthy of the offered distinction, — certainly not 
of the title, "poet but I was fond of putting my thought 
into verse then ; and the liking has never wholly failed me. 
So here, as another bit of self-gratifiaction in the making of 
this personal souvenir, I wish to embody an illustrative 
item of those days in College, which, unexpectedly, has 
happened to become available while I am writing this 
chapter. 

Because of some correspondence I had been having last 
year, (1913)* with an old friend in Boston, the following 
letter and its sequel came to pass. I am now pleasantly 
surprised at finding the correspondence and more in print 



1861 



PHI KAPPA SIGMA VERSES 



in the " Phi Kappa Sigma News Letter," of March, 1914. 
I take the liberty of " lifting " it for these pages- 

11 Deab Brothers of Phi Kappa Sigma, 
Alpha Mu Chapter, 
Boston, Mass. 

In the winter of 1861-62 our Beta Chapter was active 
and flourishing at Princeton College (now University). I was 
then eighteen years old and was a Junior in the College, 
transferred from Dickinson College, where I had been a 
member of the Epsilon Chapter of our Fraternity. During 
the winter of 1861-62, so I think, an anniversary banquet 
was held by the Beta Chapter at Princeton in the hotel 
then opposite the west campus gate, and I had been 
appointed to propose " the toast of the evening." Being 
somewhat addicted to verse-making I perpetrated "a 
pome 99 for the occasion, laboring hard to make it a worthy 
offering to our Fraternity and to the devotion of the Phi 
Kap devotees. What became of the finished effort I do 
not know. 

Some months ago, more than a half century after this 
effusion was displayed to the Beta votaries at our Phi Kap 
Shrine, I happened, in looking over some old papers, to 
find, to my gratification, an early and well advanced 
draft of this metrical achievement of my boyhood. Of 
course, " the find " interests me as a production of my 
enthusiastic youth, and I have dared fancy that it might 
be worth while to transfer it to some of the Twentieth 
Century Phi Kaps as a bit of our history when the young 
Brotherhood was feeling its growing power and worth, 

As I am more closely associated now with the Alpha Mu 
Chapter than with any other, and the dear old Beta is 
only a memory, because of college discipline, I have taken 
the liberty of sending this relic of long ago to the brethren 
of Alpha Mu, with my love and best wishes. 

I have copied the verses from the old yellowed sheets 
almost verbatim et literatim, so that "the pome" reads 
now practically as it was read then, the only serious change 
being the dropping out of about a dozen lines which were 



76 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



guilty of containing too many repetitions, and the doing 
away of some badly mixed metaphors. For the rest, the 
production is just as I gave it to the devoted group of 
happy Phi Kap boys, when I was a boy with them, at a 
dinner we ate one winter night in Princeton, at least fifty 
years ago. Most of the boys are now either very old men, 
or have left this world As a matter of personal gratifica- 
tion, and also of love for " our dear Fraternity," I send 
this old-time tribute to the Brotherhood of this generation, 
who may care to keep it. 

Fraternally yours, 

Clay MacCauley. 

Tokyo, Japan, August 10, 1913. 



Our Shrike and Our Fraternity. 

a TOAST. 

1861-62, Princeton, N. J. 

Old Father Time again with kindly hand 
Unites us at this feast — a Brother band ; 
A band connected by the strongest ties 
Which in our Shrine of hallowed friendship rise ; 
A band in which the bonds of sacred Love 
With every thought and rite are interwove, 
And in whose Symbols bloom the choicest flowers 
With which to brighten e'en the darkest hours. 

Our Shrine is nobly raised, on Union based, 
While quick-eyed Honor, faithful guard, is placed, - 
To watch with jealous eye its vestal flame 
And keep our holy Altar free from shame. 
There Secrecy stands veiled in mystic guise, 
Bearing an incense we must ever prize. 
And Sympathy is ready with her balm ; — ■■ 
Concordia Semper, too, with potent calm ; — 
Both oft assuage our harassed, tempted hours, 
With peace far sweeter than the breath of flowers. 



JSG1 



"OUR SHEXKfE AND OTJB FRATERNITY " 



The Star, see ! how it sheds its brilliant rays 

Full on our Ensign, where a in id its blaze, 

'Mid gleams so bright as almost dazzles sight 

Are seen three letters writ in living light, — 

"Phi Kappa Sigma" showing every hour 

Our treasured " Knowledge 99 as the M Key to Power.'* 

The Hand there points us from a path of harm 

Towards the Serpent, with whose subtle charm 

We start renewed from 'neath the Pillared Arch, 

9 Bound which it twines ; thence onward take our man 

O'er Wisdom's ways about our noble Shrine, 

And gain the Sceptre, — Power's royal sign. 

Though hoar antiquity may not make boast 
That she can scan the ages gone and lost, 
And claim she planted there the corner-stone, 
And raised our mighty Shrine ;— yet it has grown 
Today to such proportions massive, that its walls 
Are reared aloft on deep-laid pedestals 
So firm that ocean's waves could better shock 
And dash into oblivion the stubborn rock, 
Than Persecution, though with fiercest blame, 
Could hope to sweep from earth its potent flame, 
Or Slander vile, though full with malice fraught, 
Could crush to earth and bring it down to naught, 
It firmly stands, high-domed, full-towered still, 
Has stood unscathed and proved invincible. 

Its votaries are a host,— one Brother band,- — 
Whose chiefest joy is going hand in hand, — 
Strong with the weak — each helping each in love 
O'er all the ways in which their footsteps move. 
Their aims are pure, and holy is their cause ; 
Their deeds are ruled by ancient, holy laws ; 
Those laws,— the worthiest gifts to man e'er given, — 
The Guide for him to God, to Peace, to Heaven. 
These are the ways in which they seek to go, 
This is the life they wish this world to show,— 
Their words as bonds, their oaths as consecrate, 
Their love sincere, their thoughts immaculate. 



78 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



My Brothers, now, eleven years have gone 
Since first we laid our Shrine s grand Comer-stone ; 
Since first our three-fold Ensign was displayed. 
What is the score ? 

Behold the record made ! 
See ! from the rough Atlantic main 
To fair Louisiana's sunny plain ; 
E'en from New England's bleak and cragged hills 
To where the fragrant orange flower distils 
Its sweet perfume, a host has risen to praise 
Our glorious Shrine, which in each noon-day blaze, 
With full-orbed dome, stands forth in noble mien ; 
And on its glittering walls are clearly seen 
These words enwrit, in brilliant, living light, — 
Brave words, proclaiming far a well-won right, — 
" Stellis Aeqiius Durando" that they are 
As " lasting in duration as a star." 
Then, see our worthy Brother-host arrayed 
Throughout the world, in every sphere and grade 
Of human life, of high and low degree, — 
These members of our dear Fraternity. 
In Legislative Halls their power is felt ; 
In Courts of Law as judges they have dwelt ; 
The altars of the Holy Church have seen 
Them serve the Will Divine with humble mien ; 

In palaces of opulence and fame ; 

In homes of humbler wealth and modest name ; 

In many ways of Science and of Art, 

They've found a place and hold a worthy part, — 

Exemplars by a high fidelity 

Of that which gives our Shrine its right to be. 

Long would I dwell upon a theme so grand, 
The Shrine and merits of our Brother-band, 
Bat need is none that I should sound their praise ; 
Wide-known our Shrine, well-sung our Brothers' ways. 
My task is done when I but give the toast, — 
" Phi Kappa Sigma' s Shrine and Brother-host " 

Clay MacCauley, 

Princeton, New Jersey. Epsilon and Beta, 1861-69. 



1867 prospect cf first pastorate 79 

Hall of Alpha Mu Chapter, 
Phi Kappa Sigma Fraternity, 
225 Newbury St., Boston, Mass. 

October 29, 1913. 

Rev, Db.. Clay MacCauley, 
Tokyo, Japan. 

Dear Sir and Brother ; At a dinner following the 
initiation of six new Phi Kaps, Brother H. P. King read 
" Our Shrine and Oar Fraternity." The time for this 
presentation was more than fitting since the dinner was 
held in honor of "Founder's Day.'' The poem coming 
as it did from the early ages of Phi Kapdom brought 
closer together those who have labored in the past for the 
Fraternity, and those at present actively interested. 

Upon motion of Brother Dow, the Chapter by a rising 
vote, expressed its appreciation for your message and active 
interest in Alpha Mil 

We are all looking forward to the time when you will 
be with us once more, and we all join in extending you 
the best wishes for the future. 

Fraternally yours, 

Charles W. Fry, 

Sigma for Alpha Mu Chapter, 
Phi Kappa Sigma Fraternity. 

3. 

Tit e Pastorate of a Congregational Church 

in Prospect, 

As the last year of my studies while I was a member of 
the Northwestern Theological Seminary was passing, the 
desired opportunity for beginning work as a settled minister- 
was offered much earlier then I had expected. Being a 
member of the Senior Class of the Seminary and licensed to 
preach, I was invited that winter to the pulpits of several 
churches in the Northwest, both Presbyterian and Con- 
gregational. 



80 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART T 



I had no intention of taking a pastorate before my 
graduation, but, at the end of January, 1867, I received a 
call, unanimously given, to become pastor of the " First 
Congregational Society " in Morrison, Illinois. The call 
was so gratifying personally and the prospect through it for 
a satisfactory and useful ministry was so promising, that I 
signified my willingness to accept it, not intending, 
however, to take up permanent residence with the Society 
until I should have completed the Seminary course. 

Immediately, I met with a strong opposition from some 
members of the faculty and of the Presbytery whose 
licentiate I was. Consequently, I wrote on February 6th, 
1867, to my Morrison friends ; — 

" I am, as you know, a licentiate of the Chicago 
Presbytery and as such am under its control. While I 
continue to be a member of that body, I am in conscience 
bound to obey its directions. A prominent member of 
that body has told me that, until I am disconnected from 
the Presbytery, I have no legal, or moral, right to preach 
as candidate, or pastor, outside the Presbyterian commun- 
ion. A professor of the Seminary said to me yesterday 
that it is his wish that no call should be accepted by a 
student while in attendance at the Seminary. I can see 
no other way than to submit to this condition while I 
am a Seminary student. My obligations to the Church 
which has reared and educated me are stronger than I 
had realized, and I must withdraw my acceptance of your 
affectionate call.*' 

4. 

Graduation from the Theological Seminary. 

Thereupon I secluded myself to my duties as a Semi- 
nary Student. With the spring I was given an honorable 
graduation. My parents having returned during that 
year to Chambersburg, which was rapidly rebuilding, 



1867 



GRADUATE IN THEOLOGY 



81 



replacing the losses of the great conflagration of two years 
before, I was left in the Northwest wholly reliant upon 
my personal resources ; confronting my life-work ; having 
been made ready to enter whatever w 7 ay in my profession 
that might be opened. 



82 



CHAPTER FOURTH 

THE WINNING OF MY FAITH 
I. 

Ministry at Morrison. 

With graduation from the Seminary, I became free to 
accept a pastorate. On the 9th of May, 1867, the Morrison 
Church urgently renewed its invitation. Enabled to pro- 
cure a dismissal from the Chicago Presbytery to " unite 
with the Northwestern Congregational Association," I 
accepted the call, and immediately assumed my first 
charge as a prospective pastor. From the vantage ground 
I had thereby gained, I felt at liberty to preach as one of 
the several liberals who were then acceptably in fellowship 
with Congregational Churches in the West as, also, in New 
England. 

. During the ensuing summer I had what seemed to be 
a notably successful ministry. I heard once that one of 
the Church officers expressed some concern about the 
soming to our services of some of " the infidels " of the 
town. But, all in all, the Society and its minister were 
happy ; and they had good reason to be hopeful of a pros- 
perous and useful future. 

a. The Council at Morrison,— On August 7th, a 
Church meeting was held. Itw 7 as unanimously voted then 
that, " Eev. Clay McCauley become the pastor of the 
Church by being regularly installed as such at the time of 



1867 



THE COUNCIL AT MORRISON 



83 



his ordination." Arrangements had already been made 
for the assembling of an ecclesiastical Council in September, 
for a formal " ordination." What happened then is copied 
here from The Whiteside Sentinel, of an issue early in that 
month, 

First Congregational Church Council. 

" The First Congregational Church of this place convened 
a Council of neighboring ministers and delegates, Thurs- 
day, the 5th inst., for the purpose of examining, and, if the 
way should prove clear, ordaining Mr. Clay McCauley 
lately invited to the pulpit. • Representatives were here 
from Sterling, Como, Amboy, Lyndon and Lanark. The 
pastors of the churches of this town were also present by 
invitation. At 3 p.m., the meeting was called to order. M. 
Payne, of Amboy, was elected Scribe, and Rev. J. E. Roy, 
Sec. A.H.M S , Moderator. The Candidate was subjected 
to the usual course of examination on "religious experience 
and theology " before the Council and the large audience 
gathered in from the town and vicinity. After the dis- 
missal of the people, the Council had. a secret session and 
arrived at the following conclusion : 

' With very great reluctance, the Council have come to 
the conviction that it would not be wise to proceed, at this 
time, to the service of ordination. 

The Council were delighted with the spirit and general 
demeanor of the Candidate; and, in the main, with the 
clearness of view and originality of expression, evinced 
by him. 

But, upon the cardinal doctrine of the Gospel, the 
vicarious atonement of Christ, his views have not been 
considered satisfactory to the Council.' 

The above, which is pait of a letter of advice to the 
Church, was read to the people in the evening, preceding 
a very able and interesting sermon by the Moderator, 
Rev. Roy. 

Official action was taken by the Church Monday 
evening last, on the advice of the Council. The following 
preamble and resolution was the result : 



84 FBOM CREED TO FAITH PAET I 

' Whereas, At a Council of neighboring sister churches, 
called by this " First Congregational Church, of Morrison/ 1 
to advise with us in relation to ordaining Mr. Clay Mc- 
Cauley to the work of the Gospel Ministry with us ; after a 
full and critical examination of the Candidate, the Council 
reported adversely to his ordination at the present time, 
together with their reasons for coming to this conclusion ; 
and 

Whereas, Upon this report being referred to a full meet- 
ing of the Church publicly called, and held this 9th day of 
Sept., 1867 ; after mature deliberation, it was 

Resolved, That this Church accept and adopt the report 
of the Council in relation to the ordination of Mr. Mc- 
Cauley. 

Resolved, That while we regret and mourn the error 
into which, as we believe, our brother has been led, we 
still have full and unwavering confidence in his Christian 
character and integrity, and hope and pray that the Holy 
Spirit will lead him into all truth, and into a just and 
proper understanding of Christ and his Atonement. 

Resolved, That as a Church we desire and request Mr. 
McCauley to continue his very acceptable labors with us, 
and wish to manifest our confidence in him and our love 
for him, by sustaining him in his arduous labors, arid by 
our prayers for his welfare, and our mutual growth in 
grace and the knowledge of the truth." 

As would be expected, the action of this Council aroused 
much attention in the little Illinois town. Also, -it soon 
became the subject of discussion, wide spread among the 
two denominations immediately affected. 

The decision of the Council was to me wholly unexpected, 
because I had been, so far as I knew, welcomed as persona 
grata, theologically, in the larger group of churches in that 
region forming part of the Congregational fellowship. 
But it had so happened, that prominent in the Morrison 
Council was one minister, in special official position, who 
had come to feel it to be his duty " to root out of the 



1S67 



PUBLIC COMMENT OX THE COUNCIL 



85 



Congregational Churches of the West the rapidly spreading 
influence of Bushnellism." Consequently, when the 
" Confession of Faith" which I had prepared for the 
Council was read, he discovered an opportunity for his 
purpose which he did not let pass. 

The substance of my offending, he found in these three 
articles of my " Confession " : — 

1. "Man is an immortal and sinful creature whose 
highest life is gained in yielding perfect obedience to the 
law of God, wherever and however expressed. In the life 
and death of Jesus Christ, this obedience is most clearly 
taught and exemplified : therefore, should man follow 
Jesus in the perfect practice of the divine law as it bears 
on the human race, that is, supreme love for God and 
unselfish love for man, his highest earthly existence would 
be attained. 

2. The Atonement is the conciliation of the soul with 
the law of God. It is effected by the Holy Spirit, in 
revealing to man the love of God, in Christ, entreating the 
world to be reconciled to Himself ; then, in compelling 
such penitence for sin and yearning after pardon, that 
God blesses the penitent with a consciousness of 
forgiveness. . 

3. The Sum of Life consists in loving God, wherever 
discerned, supremely : obeying and imitating Jesus Christ, 
the divine Incarnation for the guidance of an ignorant, 
sinful world ; relying on the interior working of the Holy 
Spirit ; loving our fellow creatures, and showing that love 
by endeavoring in all good ways to lift them up to 
subjection to the law of God ; walking humbly through 
this life with a happy looking forward to existence, with 
divine and human love, beyond the world : — this is the 
Whole Duty of Man." 

b. Public Comment on the Council.— -The refusal of this 
Council to ordain me having been made public, newspapers 
near and far began to comment on its action, 



86 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



Especially noticeable was an editorial which soon ap- 
peared in the New York Independent. 

" The Bebukes of a Friend. 

It is with great regret that we witness in the Con- 
gregational denomination — the noblest (as w r e think) of all 
the Christian denominations — a prevailing and increasing 
tendency among excellent men to persecute each other for 
heresy. 

For illustration, take the unended battle which is still 
wreathing its smoke around the calm brow and heroic 
front of Dr. Bushnell. Last week a Congregational 
clergyman wrote to us from Illinois, mentioning that a 
Western Congregational council, after having assembled 
to install a young pastor, suddenly discovered that he 
held Dr. Bushneirs views of the vicarious sacrifice, and 
thereupon unanimously refused to proceed with the 
installation. Almost on the same day, about a thousand 
miles eastward of Chicago a Congregational council was 
sitting in New England, composed of some of the most 
eminent and orthodox of Puritan clergymen — such as 
President Hopkins, Dr. Todd, and others — a council in 
which Dr. Bushnell himself was a member, and in 
which he was received with a welcome due to one of the 
greatest and best of American clergymen. . In fact, he 
actually preached a sermon before that body, for which he 
received a public and unanimous vote of thanks. Now 
here is a Western Congregational council refusing to 
authorize a young man to preach because be holds Dr. 
Bushnell's views ; and, on the contrary, here is an Eastern 
Congregational council appointing Dr. Bushnell himself to 
be its official preacher, and publicly thanking him for his 
sermon.' ' 

But some of my former friends, among the Presbyterians, 
were net so generous as this Congregational editor in their 
notices of the Morrison happening. The North Western 
Presbijterian, the organ of my Presbytery, mentioned the 
event as follows : — 



1SG7 



CITATION BEFORE THE PRESBYTERY 



87 



An Unfledged Bird. 

" A Congregational Council recently convened at a town 
in Illinois, for the purpose of receiving, ordaining, and 
installing as pastor the member of the last graduating 
class of our North-western Seminary, who thought he saw 
the hand of the Master beckoning him over to the Con- 
gregational body. Was the young gentleman mistaken ? 
Perhaps so. At any rate, his examination was not satis- 
factory, and the ordination was therefore indefinitely 
postponed. I understand that the candidate failed to 
sustain a satisfactory examination on the subjects of the 
Trinity and the Atonement. Whether he was too sound, 
too lax, or too indefinite in his ideas, I know not ; but in 
view of his respectable antecedents, I hope he was too 
orthodox for his new acquaintances. Perhaps he will con- 
clude that, after all, he had no call in that direction." 

Much else appeared in various denominational papers, 
east and west, which need not be repeated. Some- 
what memorable for me, however, was a long article 
written by Eev. Washington Gladden, in the Inde- 
pendent, under the heading, "Are Dr. Bushnell's Views 
Heretical ? " The article is a good way-mark for the ad- 
vancing liberalism of American Congregationalism, forty- 
seven years ago. Especially cheering was his personal 
greeting at the close of his article : — 

" And to that young brother on the prairies — whose name 
I do not know, upon whom a Congregational council has 
shut the doors of a church — I give my right hand of 
fellowship, with my heart in it ! God bless you, my 
brother ! If they persecute you in one city, flee to another ! 
If you have found something better to preach than a 
scheme or a contrivance, preach it 1 And doubt not the 
word of Him who said, " Lo, I am w T ith you alway ! " 

c. Citation to appear before the Presbytery. — The 
month immediately following the Morrison Council was 



88 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



most eventful for me. I continued to occupy the pulpit of 
the friendly Morrison Church, awaiting — what I was con- 
fident w r ould soon come, — some notice of my trouble by the 
Presbytery whose licentiate I was. 

In the middle of October, the 15th, the critical and 
decisive action was begun. The Presbytery, meeting at 
Homer, Illinois, had this note among its items of 
business :— 

"The Stated Clerk was directed to ascertain whether Mr. 
Clay McCauley, a licentiate under this body, and recently 
dismissed to unite with the North Western Congregational 
Association, is still subject to our authority, and if so, to 
c ill him to appear at the adjourned meeting in Chicago, 
and satisfy the Presbytery as to the rumors affecting his 
soundness in the faith." 

Some weeks later, the North Western Presbyterian pub- 
lished this record. 

Withdrawal of Presbyterial License. 

" The Presbytery of Chicago met by adjournment in the 
lecture room of the North Church, on Tuesday evening, 
Nov. 12th. In the absence of the Moderator, Kev. Wm. 
Campbell was chosen Moderator pro tern. Mr. Clay 
McCauley, a licentiate of the Presbytery, responded in 
person to the citation which required him to appear and 
satisfy the Presbytery as to the truth of certain reports 
which had gone abroad affecting his soundness in the faith 
of the church. The Presbytery at once proceeded to 
examine Bro. McCauley, concerning his views of Christian 
doctrine. This examination was searching and thorough, 
yet fraternal and kind. After its conclusion the following 
paper was unanimously adopted. 

" Clay McCauley, a licentiate of this body, has appeared 
in answer to citation, and, in open Presbytery, has avowed 
opinions touching the great questions of sin and salvation, 
which opinions we hold to be fundamental error, viz ; : that 



1867 



WITHDRAWAL OF LICENSE 



89 



a tendency to sin cannot be displeasing to God, and is not 
deserving of punishment ; and that the death of Christ 
was in no sense a sacrifice for the satisfaction of divine 
justice. 

In view of these facts we consider that the welfare of 
the church, and the maintenance of pure doctrine, im- 
peratively demand of this Presbytery to ordain and de- 
clare — 

1. That the license to preach the Gospel, heretofore- 
granted to Clay McCauley be, and the same is hereby, 
revoked. 

2. That he is enjoined at once to discontinue the public 
and official preaching of the word. 

As members of the Presbytery we would take occasion 
to express our deep sorrow on account of the necessity 
thus laid upon us. We deem it due, however, to Bro. 
McCauley to say that he regards himself as by no means 
settled or established in these opinions, but as occupying 
the position of an inquirer. As we have confidence in his 
sincerity and integrity, our prayer and our hope is that he 
may yet become stablished and settled in the truth. Mean- 
while, it is due to ourselves that the sanction of this Pres- 
bytery to his public ministrations be withdrawn. 

We would also record the fact, (to the truth 'of which 
Mr. McCauley assents) that this change in his theological 
belief has taken place since he became a licentiate of this 
Presbytery. At the time of his examination and licensure, 
he sincerely accepted and believed these doctrines as stated 
in our Confession of Faith. Upon his own public and 
distinct declaration to this effect he was licensed to preach 
the Gospel. Having since changed his views and re- 
pudiated the faith of the church his license is justly with- 
drawn. 

1 To the truth of this statement I cordially assent. 

(Signed) Clay McCauley ' ? ' 

The editor of the paper added the judgment ; — " Such 
a- lapse into fundamental error on the part of one who had 
been reared in our own church, and trained in our own 
institutions, just when he was about to enter upon the 



90 



FROM CREED TO FAiTH 



PART I 



work of the ministry, is a matter for deep sorrow and 
humiliation before God. Whether he has thus wandered 
through pride and love of notoriety, or from serious diffi- 
culties as to the proper apprehension of that great system 
of Divine truth set forth in our Standards, one thing is 
certain, the responsibility and the consequences of such a 
course are of the gravest character ; far more so than we 
fear he, or most young men, are likely fully to apprehend. 
Will not many pious hearts lift up fervent prayers to God 
that he may yet be convinced of his errors, and be Di- 
vinely guided to the knowledge and belief of the truth.' ' 

In passing, it may be well to make somewhat clearer 
what the Presbytery meant by saying that I was in 

fundamental error " in declaring that " a tendency to 
sin is not displeasing to God and. is not deserving of 
punishment." 

What I intended by my declaration was to profess my 
" belief," which I expressed in other words in a newspaper 
interview soon afterwards, that 

" A child, though inheriting a nature tending towards 
sin, is not under divine wrath. The Old School church 
lays special stress on an imputation of Adam's guilt to 
his posterity. It is a link ichich, if broken, destroys the 
ichole chain of Calvinistic doctrine, For, as Adam's sin, 
say they, was imputed to all men, so Christ's righteous- 
ness, wrought out in his life and death, is imputed to 
believers. The New School church has broken this link 
and yet claims to hold the chain of Calvinism complete. 

For denial of this important part of a system, Mr. 
McCauley has had his license withdrawn. He feels that 
sin to be worthy of punishment, must be an actual 
transgression, a voluntary act of the individual. He 
denies that another's sin can be set to our account in any 
degree whatever. He affirms that for personal acts, and 
for personal acts alone, is a soul responsible to divine law." 

d. Declination of the reneiced Invitation to Morrison. 
The Congregational Council at Morrison having declined 



1S67 



DECLINE RENEWED INVITATION 



91 



to install me as pastor of the Church which had 
invited me to its pulpit ; and the Presbyter}' under whose 
license I had any recognized authority to preach, having 
ordered me to " discontinue the public and official preach- 
ing of the ^Yord " ; I decided that the only honest and 
commendable course for me to follow would be a declina- 
tion of the renewed invitation of the Morrison Society to 
continue to occupy its pulpit. I felt that the invitation 
was not an expression of the theological convictions of the 
church members, but of their personal regard. Consequent- 
ly, as soon as I could, after the Presbyterial prohibition was 
made, I announced my decision to the Church. 

The Whiteside Sentinel, in its issue of November 28th, 
1867, used the occasion to publish a long resume of my 
experiences w 7 ith the Church. Referring to the resolution 
of renewed invitation, the editor said,— 

" The closing resolution, Mr. McCauley retained unan- 
swered until last Sunday, at morning service, when, to the 
great surprise and grief of many persons in the community, 
he read the following letter to. the audience, just before his 
sermon : — 

Morrison, 111., Nov. 24th, 1867. 
To the First Congregational Church of Morrison : 

Some time since, this Church made a series of resolutions 
concerning the action of the Council called to ordain its 
minister. 

The last resolution read as follows : — ' That as a church 
we desire and request Mr. McCauley to continue his very 
acceptable labors with us, and wish to manifest our 
confidence in him and love for him by sustaining him in 
his arduous labors, and by our prayers for his welfare and 
our mutual growth in grace and the knowledge cf the 
truth.' 

This request I have retained unanswered until to-day. 



92 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



I now can answer it ; but for reasons well known must 
answer it in the negative. 

This closes a service of six months to you. It has been 
a service of gladness and love. May He who has given 
you so much peace in my presence, grant you a more 
abundant blessing in my absence. 

Our farewell should not be one of sadness, much less 
one of gloom. Our short communion has been one of 
delight. God now has directed me into another path 
than the one in which w T e have kept company. Our 
journeys will still be in parallel roads, and tow T ard the same 
destination. Therefore let us labor patiently here and 
look to the end where, we trust, both paths meet, never 
again to diverge. 

As I go under the direction of the Hand guiding me 
away from you, I leave with you only these words ; — 

Be ever firmly united in a sincere consecration to God 
and humanity, to your Father and brethren. Thus, with 
a Father's smile on you and loving hearts throbbing all 
about you, you will hasten that day for which we all so 
earnestly long ; for which Christ lived and died ; the day of 
man's redemption from sin, from self, to holiness, to God. 

Yours affectionately, 

Clay McCauley. 

During the reading of the letter there was an oppressive 
sadness and stillness in the house, testifying much to the 
love in which Mr. McCauley is held by the people with, 
whom he has been for so short a period.'' 

The writer, in his article, also said, — " In order that the 
people in this locality may fully understand the nature of 
this theological hubbub, and so comprehend the position of 
Mr. McCauley, we w T ould say that the two heresies for which 
attempt is made to silence our friend, are, in the first place, 
what separates the New School Presbyterian Church from 
the Old ; and, in the second place, what separates the 
advanced school of the Congregational Church from the 
strictly " Evangelical," as it terms itself." 



1S67 



SOME MORRISON CORRESPONDENCE 



93 



e. Extracts from Correspondence. — Not the least 
significant and important of the happenings in the three 
months which passed between the refusal of the Council 
to ordain me and my declination of the renewed invita- 
tion of the Church to be its minister, was the personal 
correspondence I had. This story would become over- 
long were I to quote freely from the many letters received. 

I became an object of much warning and entreaty ; of 
much rebuke, and of some most gloomy predictions concern- 
ing my life here and hereafter. But, in the way of 
comfort, I received a good deal of sympathy and friendly 
counsel as to what I might be able to do in the service of 
my larger faith. Those who were of my nearest kindred 
were naturally grieved, and were disturbed by painful fore- 
bodings. I was, thereby, compelled to bear a very severe 
emotional strain. I was condemned for " heaping sorrow " 
upon those who were dearest to me; for " acting cruelly " ; 
" causing grief night and day"; and I was threatened 
with responsibility for, probably, even graver results than 
these. 

Then, some long-known, familiar associates gave 
strange and most unpleasant counsel, which was painfully 
disappointing. One of them, who had the right to 
talk freely, expressed much regret that I had not shown 
enough "prudence" in my " Confession of Faith M to secure 
the formal ceremony of ordination, the possession of which 
would have set me free to express myself as I wished. I 
had told this correspondent in a letter, of a certain' Presby- 
terian minister, then having a notable popularity, who had 
said to me that he felt himself " justified " in accepting the 
doctrine of the Atonement as formulated in the "West- 
minster Confession, as a " part of the historic development 



94 



FROM CEEED TO FAITH 



PART I 



of the Church." But, he added, he " felt free to give it a 
very generous interpretation in his preaching." He urged 
me not to be " caught in the trap of heresy-hunters." 

My correspondent, referring to this conversation, made 
the comment that I should have " shown a similar 
prudence." 

" By placing your opinions in opposition to the Churches 
and Churchmen of the day, you unchurch yourself, and 
deprive yourself of the power and opportunity to do the 
Master's work as efficiently as you might have done. Re- 
jected by the Congregational, and silenced by the Presby- 
terian Church how can you do as much for Christ and 
poor dying men, as had you not been so self-opinionated 
upon the unimportant points? There is no principle 
involved, sufficient, at least, to justify or compensate a man 
for the self-destruction you have accomplished. You are 
now without authority to preach, and will not be recognized 
by any of the great or small orthodox Churches of the land : 
and the notion of succeeding as an Independent may or 
may not result as you hope. Few such efforts come to 
much — and, in the meantivie, how are you to live ? 

Returning to the subject later my relative wrote ; — 

" All your troubles, as I have said already, might have 
been avoided had you not so pertinaciously obtruded your 
views of these non-essential doctrines upon the public. 
You could easily, before your Council, have passed these 
by ; because few men are disposed to be strict, where the 
authorities and the opinions of men so greatly differ. That 
would have saved you from the recent action of your 
Presbytery ; and, instead of standing where you now do, 
you might be occupying the position of an acknowledged, 
respected and useful minister of Christ. Then, once or- 
dained, you could have taught almost anything you thought 
best ; and none would have complained, for sermons from 
the pulpit are ephemeral, — soon forgotten. 

" I wish that you had had the prudence of that clergy- 
man of whom you write. He believes as you do, but he 



1867 



SOME MORRISON CORRESPONDENCE 



95 



doesn't feel called upon to quarrel with the received opinions 
of his Church upon these non-essential matters ; and thus 
?mchurch himself, and destroy his future usefulness. 
Acceptance by some orthodox denomination is the only 
thing that will save your future career. 

" Pause before it is too late. Concede to the opinions of 
others equally able to judge with you. You are now among 
a people by whom you are loved, and among whom you 
believe you are doing good. Why throw away these great 
opportunities for the sake of a few points that are of a doc- 
trinal character, and that your success or failure will not 
determine Something should be accorded to the 

convictions of others by a mind so harrassed as yours has 
been. ,, - - - "My advice is, — sacrifice some of your un- 
acceptable views ; yield something to the opinions cf others ; 
admit that you may be wrong. You cannot revolutionize 
the world, but you may destroy yourself." 

During those troubled days, I spoke in a letter of making 
a visit to my kindred and my home-town, but I w T as told 
by one who believed he knew what would happen if I 
did so : — 

" You will not receive the consideration here, heretofore 
extended to you, until you can come armed by a commis- 
sion from some Church authority equally reputable with an 
Old School Presbytery. This, as you know, is not a place 
in which ' new lights ' can flourish. Even Ritual will not 
' go down/ Nothing but Trinitarianism, and old, accepted, 
and well-tried doctrines will be received with any toleration 
in this community. 

Thus, until you shall have made yourself a name, and 
acquired a position in the world, you cannot expect to even 
get a hearing among those who formerly honored you. 
They might receive you with apparent good will, but there 
would be no cordiality, and less encouragement, extended 
to you. They believe you in error ; and perhaps only the 
Judgment Day wll change that belief." 

In marked contrast, however, with such letters, were 
many others then sent to me. A Congregational minister, 



96 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



in charge of an Illinois Church, wrote that he had been 
attendant at a Council held a few days after the Morrison 
meeting, and had heard of what had been done with me. 
He added, — 

" I immediately arose and told of a Council recently held 
in Massachusetts that had installed a pastor although he 
was well known as an enthusiastic preacher of those doc- 
trines for which you have been proscribed. ,, - - - - "Not 
one word of objection was raised against installing the 
candidate. Dr. Bushnell was himself a member of the 
Council, cordially fellowshipped, and designated to preach 
the sermon." - - - " I accept so much of Dr. Bushnell's 
doctrine as rejects the notion that Christ died a judicial 
victim ; suffering the penalty that had been pronounced 
against men. I can not believe, or teach, that under any 
conceivable circumstances would Justice be honored by 
punishing an innocent person ; nor do I find any such 
teaching in the Scriptures. - - - - " I desire to hear from 
you, and I wish to fellowship you with ten-fold heartiness 

because of the ban that Mr. — — — and Co., have 

endeavored to place you under." 

My correspondent gave me, then, an unexpectedly long 
list of names of Congregational clergymen who, he wrote, 

" hold the views of Dr. Bushnell which Mr. ■ 

is advertising and advancing by his attempts to proscribe 
and crush them." 

" I hope you will not be driven away. We need such 
men as you to abide with us so that we may be gathering 
strength for mutual support." 

Some weeks later, the same clergyman wrote, — 
" Your letter reached me while I was journeying in the 
East. I was then staying with Dr. Bushnell. I read 
your letter to the Doctor, and it elicited his warm sym- 
pathy. He appreciates the cowardice of fellowshipping 
him and proscribing young men whose belief is similar 
to his." - - - " Incidentally I have heard from the 
Presbyterian minister in this city that a Presby- 



1367 



SOME MORRISON CORRESPONDENCE 



97 



tery has summoned you before them for discipline. I am 
filled with sympathy for you. I know that you will -find 
little consideration before any ecclesiastical judicatory. I 
assure you of my sincere fellowship and sympathy." 

Other equally sympathetic letters were received. Another 
liberal Congregational minister wrote ;— 

" What was it to your Council that the Lord was own- 
ing you and blessing you, so long as you could not speak 
their Shibboleth? I am not sorry for you. I rejoice in 
and for you. But the blindness of good men, who really 
want to do right, is pitiable. I am glad you worked your 
way out of the heathen doctrine of the Atonement. Now, 
stay where you are. 

Never mind the mourning over your error. Two can 
play at that. You can mourn over their error as sorrow- 
fully as they over yours. And I would do it. Don't 
stand on the defensive. Don't allow that your views are 
heretical. Stand up for them squarely, and show them 
your entire confidence that you are all right, and they are 
all wrong. I don't mean to counsel you to keep preaching 
about it : far from that. But let all your bearing with re- 
ference to the question show them that you have the 
firmest conviction that the truth is on your side. Then, 
let them see that a man holding such a doctrine can be 
the noblest kind of a Christian.' 1 

Yet other sympathetic letters came whose tone was that 
which is heard in a realm of thought of which I knew but 
very little, then. One of them stirred me for a while rather 
deeply, because of its suggestiveness not only of the w T ide 
range of intellectual and spiritual freedom which some minds 
had found and enjoyed, but also of the special content of 
their thought. I had never met the w T riter of this next 
letter ; but he was an intimate friend of some newly made 
and much valued acquaintances. He wrote ; — 

" I give you joy of your liberty, and you have my 



98 



FROM CBEED TO FAITH 



PART I 



deepest sympathy. I don't know how far you go, or how 
much you see. If we could only talk, you could tell me 
all. But my hope for you is, frankly, that you may break 
entirely clear of the clerical life, which, in my soberest con- 
viction, is, in the Nineteenth Century, a greenness and a 
life intrinsically false, and false in its relations. The first 
thing we find we have to do when we come to the true, 
virile age; the period of adultness, — is to abolish and forget 
all that has been taught us, and begin for ourselves, tabula 
rasa, on a clear page. This I hope for you, and so hope 
that you will utterly leave the ministry. 

•Keligion itself is the most august and lofty thing that is. 
But the creeds, doctrines, articles, rituals, novelettes, fables, 
observances, etc., that combine into a whole and get called 
so, affect me, I freely own, very much like Obi worship. 
This thing is to me only more nonsensical in degree. Let 
what I have said stand to indicate my hope for you. I 
wish you entire emancipation ; and a faith, let it be what 
it may prove, at all events drawn from your own soul ; freed 
from tradition and education, and brooding earnestly for 
truth upon the world of men and things among which you 
dwell. 

I remember that eternal ray of Fichte, — * Not the 
possession of truth, but the search for truth, is the 
glory of intellectual life.' Your position is precisely 
that of a Turk, born in Constantinople, and 
therefore a Mohammedan, to whom is presented 
for the first time, the truths of the higher religion, — say 
Christianity. You, bom in Christendom and therefore a 
Christian, are suddenly confronted with the Infinite ; 
demanding a faith and life out of yourself, out of your 
independent thought, out of your own soul." 

It may appear rather strange to some friends who are 
following the course of my experiences during that 
troubled autumn, that I did not soon seriously consider 
the advisability of leaving all Orthodox associations, and of 
seeking the fellowship of some avowedly Liberal religious 
denomination. But, for a long time, I did not entertain 



1867 SEP ABATING FROM ORTHODOXY £9 

even a suggestion of doing anything so alien to the whole 

of my life, thitherto. And when the suggestion to do so 

seemed commendable, I shrank from it. Habit, interest, — 

above all, the bonds of friendship and of affection for near 

kindred, — held me where I was. I considered, much more, 

the possibility of many other ways of living than those of 

a religious ministry outside of professed Orthodoxy. Of 

course, I could not at any time then get rid of the 

question, " What shall I do as my work in the world ? " 

Home-friends did not give over the hope that I might 

still find a satisfactory place among the liberal Orthodox 

churches. One who was very solicitous about my future 
wrote : — 

" I understand that there are two parties even in the 
Congregational Church, of diverse views upon the questions 
that concern you. If you think with either of these parties, 
are there not enough clergymen near you who think with 
you, and could be called into Council ? — Your Church 

would like to help you Why do you not stay 

where you are, where the people w T ant you? Each 
Congregational Church selects its own pastor. I suppose 
you do not stand alone. How is this ? u 

I. 

BEGINNING OF FORMAL SEPARATION FROM THE 
ORTHODOX FELLOWSHIP. 

Probably the question here urged would not have been 
so difficult of answer had I not then been becoming aware 
of the presence of influences which prompted me to use 
caution about committing myself further to an avowedly 
Orthodox fellowship. Just what to do, I had not brought 
to decision ; but it was becoming clear that my intellectual 
relationship to Orthodox Christianity must undergo a yet 



100 



FBOM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



more separating change. I had no inclination, much less 
any intention, to become so fully " a heretic " that, thereby, 
I should become practically an alien among those to 
whom I belonged by the ties of birth, rearing and educa- 
tion. But events had so occurred as to confront me with 
an intellectual crisis whose passing, in one way, meant 
just that. 

Until that autumn, I had had no important contact with 
either avowed " rationalists/ ' skeptics or "infidels," either 
in person or in their writings. During childhood and 
youth, I had had no opportunities for meeting with such 
men, or their books. This fact may be almost incredible 
to most of those who read these " Memories." But, fifty 
or sixty years ago, and in the places where my youth was 
spent, nothing was more likely to be the fact. As I grew 
towards manhood, I heard, of course, of " infidels " and of 
" infidel books ;" but I was always taught to think of such 
persons as of evil character, and of their books as " devices 
of Satan." 

When, as a college student, I undertook the work of a 
colporteur in my uncle's parish, I was once confronted by 
an avowed Universalist. I thought that, with such 
belief, the man could not be morally upright. Even 
during my career as a soldier, though I often saw much 
indifference to religion, and much, even gross, evil, I met 
with no one who was either a pronounced religious 
" heretic," or " infidel," And as a student in the theological 
Seminary, though 1 knew of the existence of Unitarians, 
Universalists, and kindred ''heretics ;" and had then learn- 
ed enough to know that they were not necessarily bad or 
immoral folk, nothing brought me into personal associa- 
tion with them. There was nothing singular about this 



1867 



SEPARATING FROM ORTHODOXY 



101 



ignorance. In our student life we were almost inevitably 
secluded from all people and books which did not have 
some needful part in our specific, current duties and 
studies. 

Illustrative of this isolation is an incident happening 
one day when I was passing Eev. Eobert Collyer's Church. 
Seeing the doors open, as the janitor swept the vestibule, 
I yielded to a momentary curiosity to know w T hat was 
inside the building. I entered the auditorium rather hesi- 
tatingly. The Churchlike look of the interior impressed 
me ; but picking up a hymn-book, I opened it to be much 
surprised, at meeting, the first thing, one of my favorite 
hymns. 

Throughout the Seminary course, my reading was well 
within Orthodox bounds. The literature in our library 
had been chosen for Orthodox purposes. I happened— I 
forget how — to get possession of the first series of Emer- 
son's " Essays 99 in my second year, but the volume was 
more a curiosity than a book to which I might give studi- 
ous reading. Rationalistic and scientific speculations, ap- 
pearing in the newspapers and magazines, I either passed 
by or did not read intelligently. Strange though it may seem, 
preoccupied as I was with my inherited Creed and regular 
studies, the meanings of these writings did not get far into 
my understanding. It is true, that the intellectual world 
in which I and, so far as I know, my fellow students lived, 
w r as literally alien, — foreign to that into which I was guided 
later and, in time, clearly understood. 

It was not, in fact, until I was well advanced in the 
ministry at Morrison, that I began to understand that I was 
vitally related to a much broader and more varied domain of 
sincere and truth-bearing thinking and living than the ona 



102 



FKOM CBEED TO FAITH 



PART I 



I had thitherto accepted as of real worth. I became close- 
ly associated in Morrison with some well-cultured, ration- 
alized and liberally inclined members of the community ; 
some of whom had become attendants at the services of 
my Church. 

Then, further, during the summer of the year before, 
at Depere, as I have already noted, I had enjoyed the 
friendship of the generous Episcopalian who had called 
me to account for the harsh " appeal " I had made 
"to the unconverted " in my introductory sermon. Also, 
during that summer, I had the privilege of gaining the 
friendship of one who the next year became my wife. 
This friend, by the way, also a devoted member of the 
Episcopal Church, was visiting relatives in Depere. Her 
generous religious sympathies, though her "creed" was 
that of her Church, almost inevitably gave a more con- 
siderate quality to my thinking. Her home was in 
Bangor, Maine, with relatives who were connected with 
the " Independent Congregational Society " there, whose 
minister, then, was the Eev. Charles Carroll Everett. 

I became acquainted with Mr. Everett in that Morrison 
summer. This happening became an event of specific 
importance, not immediately, but some months afterwards, 
when my theological troubles had culminated. 

I had the good fortune to visit Bangor in July, 
1867. During that brief visit an engagement of per- 
sonal interest associated me rather closely with Mr. 
Everett. He was the first Unitarian minister I had 
met. Out of his generosity, he invited the young Con- 
gregational minister from the West to occupy his pulpit. 
I preached in it one of the liberal sermons which, a short 
time before, I had given to my home congregation. 



1867 SPENCER'S " FIRST PRINCIPLES " 103 



Mr. Everett and I had no theological discussions ; — my 
proposed installation as the minister of the Orthodox Con- 
gregational Morrison Church was but a few weeks distant. 
I remember only that I was much impressed by Mr. 
Everett's personality, as that of a very genial, very wise, 
and very good man. 

I returned to Morrison, starting July 25th, accom- 
panied by Mrs. MacCauley, to continue my pastoral 
work ; expecting thenceforward, however, to serve as a 
minister officially installed in office. With what result 
my expectation was met, the record of the Council, already 
given, shows. 

a. Acquaintance with Herbert Spencer s First Princi- 
ples. It was not long after the surprising meeting of the 
Morrison Council, I believe, when I passed through the first 
experience that made me realize clearly that further attempts 
to work with any professedly Orthodox Church might not 
be advisable, or even possible. One of the liberally inclined 
of the Morrison friends of whom I have spoken, brought 
to me a copy of Herbert Spencer's " First Principles/' It 
was a book quite new in America, then, and attracting much 
attention. Scientific speculation had been for me, as a rule, 
the following of such processes as those of Professor Arnold 
Guyot, and of the Scotsman, Hugh Miller. ( I could hold 
what they, and their like, taught, in close agreement with 
my inherited Creed. Besides, in College, I had faithfully 
studied Bishop Butler's " Analogy of Religion, Natural 
and Eevealed," in association with Paley's "Natural Theo- 
logy." But, under the pressure of the experiences through 
which I was then passing, I was glad to get hold of this 
treatise of Spencer's, which, I was assured, had much that 
would interest me, The first day I had it, I read and 



104 



FROM CEEED TO FAITH 



PABT I 



reread in it far into the night, and well into the next 
morning. Then, I read the first part over and over again, 
during the days following. 

I could not ignore the many questionings which this 
reading started. Possibly, more than any other one influence, 
it made me hesitate about complying with the request of 
my Church to continue with it as its minister ; or also, to 
consider favorably the request of my home friends to gather 
a Council of friendly ministers that I might receive their 
endorsement. I did not foresee just where this new think- 
ing would lead me. Moreover, I shrank from adding trouble 
to the anxiety which already disturbed those to whom I 
was bound by kinship and affection. 

The line of least resistance, thereupon, for a time, seemed 
to be in a direction widely away from the profession for 
which I had been prepared. For a while, I thought that 
I should lessen my most serious difficulties by undertaking 
some wholly secular work such as that of journalism ; or 
of the lecture platform, and of general literature. But I 
hesitated to make the venture. I was much perplexed ; 
I waited for yet clearer indications. 

b. Correspondence with Charles Carroll Everett. One 
day in October, a fortunate impulse led me to the writing 
of a letter whose consequences, at length, changed almost 
entirely the course of my life. It was the first move I made 
towards entrance upon the way which, ever since, I have 
followed. 

The letter was to my newly found friend in Bangor, 
Bev. C. C. Everett, telling him of the decision of the 
Council, and of the generous renewal of the invitation of 
the Church to continue as its minister. 

" I hardly know," wrote Mr. Everett in reply, "whether 



1S67 



FRIENDS IN NEED 



105 



I should express to you my sympathy or congratulations. 
Either, I could send heartily. I feel that it must be a 
trying experience to pass through. At the same time there 
must be a feeling of relief and freedom since the crisis is 
passed, and you now stand for yourself, responsible to no 
man or body of men. 

The action of your Society seemed to me very pleasant 
and even touching. It showed that, though they had not 
your intellectual convictions, they had your broad sympa- 
thies, and that though they were not with you in the letter 
they were in the spirit, which is better. 

What you may think best to do I can not of course say. 
Still, it is not pleasant to work alone, and I would be very 
glad to do anything possible to facilitate your entrance into 
new relationships, should you judge best, where you would 
be as free as you are now, and would have the advantage 
of co-operation and organization such as you have now left 
behind you. 

Feeling this, I took the liberty to write to Messrs. Lowe 
and Collyer. Mr. Lowe writes to me that he has written 
to you urging you to be present at the Unitarian Conference 
in Chicago. - - - My feeling is not to hurry you from 
your present post, but that you should feel that the way 
is open, and that wherever you are you have our hearty 
sympathy and fellowship." 

I did not attend the Chicago Unitarian Conference. I 
was not yet ready for so extreme a move. But I was much 
cheered by Mr. Everett's letter; and then by a kindly letter 
soon received from Mr. Lowe, who was secretary of the 
American Unitarian Association. I do not remember what 
reply I made to Mr. Lowe, but I think it was a somewhat 
detailed statement of my trouble and an announcement of 
the summons to me to meet the Chicago Presbytery. 

c. Visit to Robert Collyer. — The day after the 
Presbytery had withdrawn my license to preach, 
feeling utterly alone and friendless in the big city, 
Chicago, I decided to have a talk with Eobert Collyer. I 



106 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



had not had the letter from him of which Mr. Everett 
wrote, but I knew that he had heard of me ; and I felt 
confident that he would welcome me and, possibly, help to 
make things easier than they w r ere. 

I shall never forget the reception Robert Collyer gave 
me, In answer to my summons he came to the door. 
When I told him my name, at once he took both my 
hands in his, and, looking hard at me, exclaimed, " My 
poor boy, and what have they been doin* to ye ? Come 
in ! I know what ye want : it's some beer and a piece of 
roast beef." 

Leading me into a room, and pushing me down 
upon a lounge, he said, " Mother, bring us some beer." 

He then took place beside me and began a cheery, 
affectionate talk. From that moment I knew I had found 
a big-hearted friend, to whom I could go for counsel, what- 
ever might befall. 

Upon my return to Morrison, and just before I closed 
official connection with the Morrison Church, another letter 
from Mr. Lowe came, expressing 

" Deep sympathy, in view of the trying ordeal through 
which you are passing. Most fervently do I pray that 
God's blessing and guidance may be vouchsafed to you, 
and that the issue of what is now so painful an experience 
to you may be such as to make you rejoice, and to advance, 
through you, the best interests of Christian truth. 

Be assured of the hearty fellowship and support of our 
own brethern, whatever may be the result of your meeting 
the Presbytery. I hope that while in Chicago you 
may have called on our brothers Collyer, who would both 
feel so deep an interest in your present position." 

I was much affected by the kindness and evident real 
goodness ol the writer of these letters. No Orthodox 
counsellor could have written with more genuine Christian 



1S67 SPECIAL LECTUBE IN M0BBIS0N 107 

devoutness, — so I was impressed, — than Charles Lowe ; 
nor could I have received from any friend more tactful 
help, in the physical and mental distress I was then under, 
than came through Robert Collyer's big-hearted, humorous 
hospitality. 

It was still to be some time, however, before I considered 
seriously the proposition made to me to enter the Unitarian 
ministry. I then had become convinced that I was per- 
manently unfitted to remain longer the minister of any 
professedly Orthodox Church. Consequently, I gave up 
the Morrison pastorate, unwilling to compromise further 
that Church in its relations to its sister Societies, 

But, What shall I do ? was the immediate, and seriously 
pressing, problem. A letter from Rev. Eobeit Collyer, 
written Nov. 22nd, 1867, and received the day after I had 
read my letter of declination to the Morrison people, offered 
a definite answer to this question. 

" When I parted from you at the corner/' (as I left him 
in Chicago ten days before,) "I had an impression that you 
wanted thenceforth to wrestle the matter out alone. But, 
in answer to yours of this morning, I have only one thing 
to say ; make your feet stand plumb under your head. 
That, they are not doing while you stay with the Church 
out of which they have now driven you. 

Personal friendships and regards are nothing when they 

come into conflict with the need to follow Christ 

But whether you will then stand with us when you have 
so trued your feet, is quite another thing. — — 

Besides that, my dear fellow, I have nothing to say 
except the sweet old prayer, 1 Lord, lift Thou upon him 
light of Thy Countenance.' Most lovingly yours." 

cl. Special Lecture in Morrison. — For some time after 
closing the Morrison ministry, I remained in that town 
trying to come to a decision concerning the future. Dur- 



108 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART 1 



ing the week following the declination, " The Young Men's 
Literary Association" invited rae to deliver a lecture before 
it at my " earliest convenience. " I was much gratified at 
receiving this important evidence of the confidence and 
liking of this large part of the community ; and I accepted 
the invitation. 

But I was much perplexed as to the kind of lecture I 
should give. It was intimated that a personal explanation, 
and a defense of the course I had followed, would be wel- 
come and popular. But I was already over-weary of the 
notoriety I had received ; and I declined to do that. And 
an adequate literary entertainment for the Association I 
felt would be beyond my abilities. I decided, then, upon 
rather a bold venture ; yet it seemed to be at the time the 
only thing really available for me. 

I have spoken of having read Herbert Spencer's " First 
Principles." The reflections which that book had started, 
and, generally, my newly awakened speculations concerning 
the deepest questions which Man asks about himself and the 
Universe, were, aside from my personal troubles, the most 
interesting facts of my mental occupation. They supplied 
me with a theme. Consequently, I arranged with the 
Association to answer their invitation w T ith a lecture upon 
the very formidable subject, Man : — His Belation to 
Force and Law. 

Thus it came about, that on December 12th, 1867, a 
large audience gathered in the " Concert Hall," and, 
seemingly, was much interested in what the young minister 
had to say. The editor of a local newspaper, took my 
manuscript and published a generous summary of the 
lecture. In large part, I repeat the summary to indicate 
the stage to which my mental development had gone. 



1867 



THE MORRISON LECTURE 



109 



ii. 

synopsis of the morrison lecture. 

We promised our readers — in noticing the Lecture de- 
livered by Eev. Clay McCauley, on the evening of the 
12th inst., before the Y.M.L A. of this place — a more 
extended synopsis of the points made by the speaker upon 
that occasion, than we were then at leisure to present No 
apology is needed for reverting to the subject now 7 , other 
than is furnished in the interest awakened by the speaker 
in the minds of those who were so fortunate as to hear him 
upon that occasion. 

Man : His Relation to Force and Law. 

Mr. McCauley gave as a reason for his departure from 
the usual themes of discourse, the great need there is at this 
time for a popular apprehension of the latest generalizations 
of science, concerning the why and the how of man's 
existence, — generalizations which are the property of the 
few, but which should be possessed by all. To try to make 
the maturest products of mind living inspirations to the 
masses, seemed to be his object. 

I. His first position was then taken : The sovereignty 
in the universe of Force and Law, that is, of irresistible 
Power, and intelligent Control of that Power. 

1. One of the first facts the mind grasps, is that of 
motion — alteration. At last it is proven that not an 
existence is at rest, from the activity of chemical affinities, 
to the sweep of nebulae ; from the yearnings of a human 
spirit to the volitions of the eternal Life. Matter and 
spirit are instinct with change. This universal motion is 
but the effect of universal Force. 

2. Now with this constant Force has been discovered 
intelligent Direction. The Fetishist and Poly theist recognize 
the universal Force in independent forces ; not the Law 
over all — the universal unity in diversity. But the man 
educated to the position whence we act, sees intelligence in 
every change. Wisdom, order, perfection, are everywhere 
evident. All acts of the past, present, and future, are in 
harmony ; under control of Force and Law. Nothing can 



110 



FEOM CREED TO FAITH 



PABT I 



hasten or hinder their expression. He who fears the logic 
of this truth, must cease to think under the knowledge of 
to-day. 

Ignorance calls this fact, Fate. Fate is a bad word. 
But if inevitab'e Force and irrepressible Law, be Fate, 
then call them Fate. The name will not hurt the truth. 
The perfect connection between cause and effect ; power 
and result, law and harmony, is being recognized. There 
is nothing, from a slip and fall on the sidewalk to the 
prophecy of an eclipse a thousand years hence and the 
fulfilment of the prophecy, that is not included in one 
progressive plan. 

II. This brought the speaker to his second thought : 
The relation of Man to this Force and Law ; he is 
controlled by them, as is every other thing. 

1. One of the first acts of consciousness is the recognition 
of self as a force and law. From the discovery of his 
ability to throw down a rattle, while yet a babe, man feels 
himself to be a determining power. From this knowl- 
edge and the fact that man is evidently supreme among 
the creatures of earth, the hasty conclusion has been 
drawn that he is a kind of isolation in the Universe, — 
totally different from all other things. 

2. It is better known now that man differs chiefly in 
degree, and less in kind, from his surroundings. He is 
the supreme delegate on the earth of Force and Law, 
but no more. He is only farther advanced and more 
highly endowed than the other creatures, — being the 
highest mental, and only moral animal. 

(a) The most ignorant admit that divine action alone 
moves the insensate elements, — the mineral and vegetable 
realms. 

(b) Even, in voluntary life, from the polyp to the 
mammal, men see God acting through what they call 
instinct, 

(c) But at man absolute Divine control is thought to cease. 
This is the effect of an ignorance and a pride which matur- 
er knowledge destroys. Man is, like other things, a creature. 
He modifies and subdues the elements and the life about him ; 
and yet, not he, but Force and Law, acting through him. 



1867 



THE MORRISON LECTURE 



111 



Through man as well as beast, plant, or mere matter, the 
same Force and Law work. All his progress, individual, 
national, and racial, conforms to certain Force and Law, 

III. Then the speaker took his last chief position. The 
first two thoughts being of facts, we now learn that Man is 
being borne through an ordained, perfect existence as a 
whole. 

Man, en masse, has birth, infancy, childhood, and 
maturity. As individuals round out perfect lives ; as 
their lives round out a nation's life ; as nations round out 
the life of a generation ; so generations will form, at last, a 
perfect life for the race. Credulity, ignorance, and super- 
stition, are marks of infancy ; examination knowledge, 
and faith, are signs of maturer life. About the past hang 
the former, — the present glories in the latter. 

Man is now leaving his infancy and entering his childhood 
and youth. The ages gone by were, of necessity, ages of terror 
and helplessness. No more should they be condemned than 
should a babe be condemned. From its nature, infancy is 
not governed by conscious intelligence. Ignorance, su- 
perstition, fear of the unknown and unexamined things 
about man, make natural impressions on his mind. He 
has misunderstood almost everything. Dreadful supernatu- 
ralism has pervaded everything. But Force has moved him 
forward, and Law has directed the progress. Like a 
young child he has begun to ask intelligent questions 
concerning his surroundings. But he is as yet only a child. 
He has asked some questions and received some answers ; 
how few, the man of the future will show. The highest 
thing as yet accomplished by him is release from the 
bewilderment of infancy. His life is but a childish one, full 
of wonders and extravagances. His eager cry is now heard 
everywhere for science, knowledge. ] Where the infant 
man at every movement was face to face with mystery 
and recoiled in terror, now, the youth steps to the same my- 
stery with eagerness, and compels it to explain itself. Not 
a thing inspires the educated, scientific mind with the old 
time fear. Man knows that Nature is his to control. His 
inquiries are often impertinent, but impertinence is natural 
to a youth. "The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence 



112 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



and the violent take it by force." Man under Force and 
Law is growing,, comprehending, subduing, all things 
around him. 

1. Only one sacred theme, — the highest in the affection 
and imagination,— receives gentle treatment in this 
universal search, is asked fewest questions and with little 
boldness, — Keligion. Why ? Why does not Man search 
it as other things, to clear away its marks of infancy, 
its ignorance, and superstition ? The time is not fully here 
yet. It is the last questioned, because it should be the 
last. It will be a science, however, as all other things are 
becoming sciences ; based on fact instead of fancy. When 
man is ready for it, it will come. Eeligion is now under the 
guardianship of dogmatism, of authority, it is not based on 
science ; authority as many shaped as Proteus. It pretends 
to absolutism from the word of the South African to 
interpretations of the highest Scripture. Its power rests 
on terror and mystery, not on discovered scientific 
truth, on which, alone, true authority can be based. A 
day will come when Ecclesiastic absolutism over the con- 
science, concerning religion, will be as perfectly cast off as it 
has been from the mind, concerning geography and 
astronomy. Eeligion is under the guidance of Force and 
Law, and when the time comes this freedom will be gain- 
ed. Eeligion as it is, accomplishes a beautiful work, produces 
peace, piety ; — matures the growing man. But as there is 
a physical and mental Science, so will there be a Spiritual 
Science. 

2. As with man in the Church so will it be with him in 
the State. 

As individual freedom based on spiritual science will 
form the Church of the future, so individual freedom, 
based on true political science, will form the State of the 
future. To this youth of our race are Force and Law 
surely directing us. 

The first inspirations to this life are to be felt in this 
Eepublic. Greece, though called a democracy, was but an 
aristocracy, through her slavery. We are having the first 
true Eepublic of the world ; and already it is shaping itself 



1867 TWO MEMORABLE BOOKS 118 

into the great Democracy for which we hope. Democracy 
is the maturest life we can prophesy. 

Here the world of the future is heralded. Force and 
Law are working here towards the mature life — per- 
fecting Man. Trust these certain powers amid all 
the scenes which transpire around us. Eemember the 
thoughts through which we have passed. You can 
not doubt then the glory and strength that are yet in store 
for Man in every relation he has. Beyond this im- 
mediate future we can not now see. The men of the 
coming days must describe that time ; we are only children 
and have just begun to know. 

d. Beading " Broken Lights " and " Beason in Beli- 
gion." — Not long after the delivery of the Morrison lecture, 
another formative event in my intellectual and spiritual 
experience came to pass. This happening went far to 
hasten the decision to which I at length came concerning 
the future. 

I was the guest of a friend in Chicago. He was a 
member of the New Church (Swedenborgian), an earnest- 
ly religious man, but hospitable, generally, to the notable 
religious literature of the times. 

Among the books lying on a table in his library, I saw 
two whose titles attracted me : — " Broken Lights " by 
Frances Power Cobbe, and " Beason in Beligion " by 
Frederic Henry Hedge. I began to read Miss Cobbe's 
book in the evening. After the family had retired, I con- 
tinued to read until I had read the book through. 

/. Conscious Belease from Orthodoxy. — With that read- 
ing, the hold upon me of Orthodoxy at last broke, con- 
sciously and wholly. I found that at last I was without 
even a slack allegiance to my inherited Creed. I felt, in 
religious thinking, as though I had found myself, all at 
once, adrift. 



114 FEOM CREED TO FAITH PAET I 



My next reading was of Dr. Hedge's book. Then, so I 
thought, I saw a harbor to be gained. But how to manage 
my craft to enter it, I did not know. That midwinter 
week, however, I remember as the time when I began to 
know that I was winning a faith ; really gaining a faith 
because of efforts made through my own brain and heart. 

Ere long, I felt sure of my possession. A Faith became 
mine which, through all the years since, has been for me 
as an ample port and harbor of refuge; or rather as a 
sanctuary, whence I have beer enabled to give whatever 
devotion, or service that has appeared in my long career. 

Those two books, I have always believed, marked the 
culmination of the long series of experiences through 
which my intellectual emancipation in religion was achiev- 
ed and made secure. 

2. 

At Detroit. 

With the coming of the new year, 1868, I began to be 
hopeful that I might continue in my career as a Christian 
minister. I had spent several years in preparation for ser- 
vice in that sacred office ; and I was unwilling to sacrifice 
unnecessarily the results of the long labor. Besides, with 
my conscious, evident winning of a satisfying faith, my 
former desire to proclaim " the Good News " was revived. 

It became, of course, continually clearer that, if I 
should go beyond the limits of some kind of Orthodox 
fellowship, I would cause much sorrow and protest in the 
circle of my immediate kindred and friends. But, all this 
notwithstanding, I felt compelled, finally, after much 
painful thinking over it, to go forward in the newly opened 
way. 



1868 



AT DETROIT 



115 



a. Invitation to the Detroit Unitarian Church. — In 
January, I was invited to occupy the pulpit of the " First 
Congregational Unitarian Society/' Detroit, Michigan. I 
informed my home-folk of the invitation, adding that I 
should accept this opportunity and see what the future 
would bring forth. 

A reply came at once that my family were " grieved to 
think that I had any Unitarian tendencies, or would 
accept charge of a Unitarian Society. I may not fully 
understand their views," wrote my correspondent, "but 
any denial or repudiation of the Divinity of my Saviour I 
cannot tolerate." 

The next bit of record I have from my closest kindred, 
I find in a letter written to me in March, after I had 
preached for a while in Detroit, and was on the verge of 
accepting an invitation to a ministry of some length there. 

" We think you are quite in a hurry to accept an invit- 
ation to go to Detroit. How you can preach to a people 
who deny and degrade Christ, their Saviour, I know not. 
I thought that when you were examined by the Presby- 
tery you had no trouble about the divinity of Christ. 

The Independent, I see, now speaks of you as a convert 
to Unitarianism ; and when I think back to the long letter 
you wrote me, I remember that full half of it was filled 
with arguments to show that Christ occupied a place 
second to the Father. I did not think that you doubted 
Christ's equality with the Father in any respect. The 
leaven has been working, and is now showing itself. 

Verily, you have ' swung round the circle ' to make a 
wreck of yourself. Our sympathies are not with societies 
outside the acknowledged Christian Church. As you have 
now determined to cast in your lot with the Detroit 
Society, we hope that your efforts may prove to the glory 
of God. 

We are " old Fogies." We are content to worship 
our God as our fathers did ; we do not aspire to 



116 



FEOM CREED TO FAITH 



PAET I 



be wiser than they. We had hoped that we could be 
proud of you, and by this time, when your name was 
mentioned, speak of your honorable position before God 
and man. But that is past." 

b. Public Comment on my becoming a Unitarian. — 
Beginning with April 1st, 1868, I undertook service to the 
Detroit Unitarian Church, for a six months ministry. The 
Independent of New York, made this note of the event. 

" Some of our readers may remember the case of the 
Rev. Clay McCauley, who, last year, was refused ordina- 
tion, on the ground of heretical opinions, by a Congrega- 
tional association sitting at Morrison, 111. A few weeks 
later, license to preach was taken from him by the Old 
School Presbytery of Chicago. As Orthodox pulpits were 
thus closed against him, he turned this way and that to 
find some rostrum on which to stand and utter the thought 
that was within him. The only door open to him was 
that of the Unitarian pulpit ; and, without trammels or 
pledges, he went there to preach, using the same sermons 
that seemed good food to many hearts at Morrison. 
He is now ministering to the Unitarian society at Detroit. 
Though still a very young man, he shows a grasp of 
thought and a power of utterance which are commanding 
attention in that community. We hope that he will be 
faithful to the manhood which God has given him ; that 
he will not become embittered by his experience ; and that, 
whatever may be the nominal direction of his mental 
development hereafter, it may be into the truth, and beauty, 
and goodness of Christ." 

Some former friends of the Presbytery of Chicago, how- 
ever, were not so generous in their comments as the 
Independent. On May 9th, the North Western Presby- 
terian, — in its " Editorial Brevities " — published the 
following note. There was reference to another person 
in the note. I quote only the part referring to me. 



3368 



BECOMING A UNITARIAN 



117 



" STRAYING STILL FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH. 

Mr- Clay McCauiey, whose license was withdrawn by 
the Presbytery of Chicago for defection from the faith of 
the church, has strayed so far from the truth as to cast in 
his lot with the Unitarians, and is now preaching to a 
Unitarian church in Detroit, Mich. 

The Rev. Robert Collyer in writing recently to the 
Liberal Christian, thus glories over this accession, to their 
and our reproach : 

' Rev. C. McCapley, about whose going to Detroit you 
printed a brief paragraph, gives promise of great usefulness 
there, or wherever he may go. He has just come to us 
from the Old School Presbyterians, in one of whose 
churches at Morrison, in this State, he has been preaching 
since his ordination with great acceptance. But he got 
into some trouble about the doctrine of the Atonement — 
perhaps the most difficult doctrine for any delicate and 
honorable soul in the whole scheme of Orthodoxy, especially 
as it is insisted on by the stern Old School of which he is 
a disciple. The result was, at last, that they turned him 
out. Perhaps it would be a milder thing to say that they 
suspended him from preaching.' 

The stumbling of such stripling and novice in the truth, 
at the great central doctrine of the Christian system, neces- 
sarily proves nothing, as to the correctness of Unitarianism 
or Universalism, nor any thing as to the falsity of Ortho- 
doxy. If any man preach any other Gospel unto you 
than that ye have received, let him be accursed " 

The italics are those of the editor. The Morrison church 
was Congregational, not Presbyterian. 

There was but little outward change in my preaching at 
Detroit from that which was given at Morrison. The ser- 
mons were nearly all rewritten for the new pulpit, but they 
were only freed from some of their more pronounced 
Orthodox phrases, and from what I was discovering then 
to be their literary crudities, or errors. The Detroit 
people were very generous, forbearing and encouraging to 



118 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



the stranger " stripling and novice." My newly- won 
faith was, of course, not yet well formulated. But I was 
at* last wholly emancipated from the bondage of my "in- 
herited creed." Days of real mental struggle and distress, 
except for the grief I felt over the sorrow and opposition of 
kindred and former friends, were past. Mind, heart, 
soul, I was buoyed upon a serene and sheltered faith. Over 
me was the open sky, and, before me, freedom to take my 
way as the Spirit of Truth " might inspire. 

The summer passed without notable event. Increasing 
contentment and undisturbed opportunity to think intel- 
ligently of my. work for the future, had come. Important 
personal and professional problems confronted me, but they 
could be studied without special stress. I read widely 
among the writings of those who were spoken of as leaders 
among Liberal Christians, that I might become familiar 
with their ways of thinking, and with the administration of 
the doings of the Churches with which I had become as- 
sociated. 

My newly composed sermons were not controversial, or 
even speculative, notwithstanding my interest in theologi- 
cal readjustments. I made general ethical, and purely re- 
ligious, motives the principal themes of the new ser- 
monizing. Besides, I took considerable interest in matters 
of public morals, and in the general welfare of the city. I 
undertook some campaigning on behalf of the " Massachu- 
setts Society for the Protection of Animals,' ' seeking to bring 
about a State organization for Michigan. The problems 
of the city's charities also interested me a good deal. 



1868 



FEOM DETROIT TO ROCHESTER 



119 



3. 

At Hocliester. 

But more than all else, as the summer of 1868 advanced, 
I came to see that my preparation for this new ministry 
had been very limited, and that the service I was giving to 
this important Detroit Society was poorly inadequate. I 
did not seek a change of position, but I freely acknowledge 
that the invitation which I received in September from 
Rochester, New York, to go the " First Unitarian Congre- 
gagational Society,'' there, upon the close of my Detroit en- 
gement, was welcome. I had become much attached to 
many persons in Detroit, but the Rochester invitation 
offered new opportunity for furthering a much needed 
acquaintance with Unitarian people, and with another phase 
of the work of the Unitarian ministry, which I thought it 
wise not to forego. 

a. Installation at Rochester, New York — On Septem- 
ber 14th, the Rochester Society sent me a unanimous 
invitation to be its minister for one year, from October 1st. 

Five days after the latter date, I was installed in office : 
Rev. Robert Collyer, preaching the sermon, and Revs. Samuel 
J. May, Robert Laird Collier, S. R. Calthorp, Frederick 
Frothingham, and thelccal Universalist minister, Rev. Asa 
Saxe, sharing the other parts of the ceremony. 

A letter of thanks to Robert Collyer brought a most 
affectionate answer, from which the following extracts are 
pertinent here :— 

- 11 Very glad I am to see you standing in your true place, 
winning the love of so true a people "as that you have about 
you in Rochester. I look forward to your gaining there a 



120 FBOM CEEED TO FAITH PART I 

great spiritual fortune. " The gold of the land is good and 
there is bedelium and the honey-comb." 

In Detroit, you did well. Your work, I hear on all hands, 
was wise and good. It was wise, too I think, that you 

resigned the reins. I suppose they may get . If 

they do, he will enter into your labors, and find his own 
easier through the preparation you made." 

The pastorate at Rochester was quite eventful, and it 
was served with much more ease, because of increasing 
knowledge on my part of how to preach and of how to 
work, than the ministry at Detroit I was beginning really 
" to find myself " ; and to be that much more useful to 
the parish and to the fellowship of the Churches of a 
" rational Christian faith." As in Detroit, I took part in 
several movements in the community directed towards 
social betterment: also in the affairs of several bene- 
ficiary institutions, particularly those connected with 
reform in the prison, and in the insane asylum, and in 
the society whose object was protection of animals. 

But of special importance for these ' 4 Memories," regard- 
ed as a series of specific life-sketches, I have to recall the 
Rochester ministry as being distinctive, because in it my 
first; real antagonism in public to my ancestral Creed was 
shown ; also because, more than any other period in my 
career, it became one of theological controversy. 

b. First Ptiblic Attack on Calvinism. — On November 
22nd, 1868, I made an open attack on Calvinism, de- 
nouncing its distinctive 6 ' doctrine of Human Nature" 
This sermon marks the time when, to the public, I appear- 
ed as actually hostile to that irrational, terror-burdened 
dogma of my inherited Creed, — the " Total Depravity of 
Human Nature ;" and as devoted to the rational optimism 
of faith in man's Native Dignity. 




First Unitarian Congregational Church, 
Rochester, New York, 1868 



1868 



ATTACK ON CALVINISM 



121 



Of necessity, this sermon was the product of a very 
undeveloped thinker, poorly expressing his new- won faith ; 
but it had the merit of being the earnest utterance of an 
emancipated brain and heart, rejoicing under the liberty of 
brightening truth , exhilarated by the possession of precious 
gains made in a free study of the spiritual relationship of 
God and Man. 

The sermon as a whole is not worth repeating ; but, as 
marking the public evidence of my emancipation from 
bondage to the Calvinistic dogma that " Human Nature is 
Totally Depraved," parts of it are interesting to read now, 
however little their objective importance in these more en- 
lightened days may be. 

I. 

The Dignity of Human Nature. 

I commenced the sermon by saying that, as we begin 
our lives, among the things we are earliest taught, is " the 
greatness, wisdom and holiness of God." As children we are 
— " taught that from eternity God has existed ; crowning 
eternity with goodness ; and that forever He dwells in the 
majesty of Holiness. Having received this ' knowledge ' of 
Deity, we are told that our ancestors, once the pure children 
of God in Eden, rebelled against divine law, and fell to a 
lower life than that of the brutes ; and that for six thous- 
and years Humanity, through Adam, has been allied with 
the Prince of Evil to destroy the glory of God. 

Then, we are told that the Eternal Son, himself God, 
moved with affection for man, entered the sinful creature's 
nature, and, after enduring for thirty-three years the assaults 
of iniqity and the temptations of Satan, died a criminal on 
the cross of Roman justice ; but that His incarnation, 
suffering and death made a way of salvation for man ; 
being a satisfaction and vindication of the violated divine 
Law. Of course, viewing the wonderful purity of God, the 
awful degradation of man, and then the Divine sufferer 



122 



FEOM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



incarnate for human redemption, we are amazed, and we 
find expression for our amazement in such words as, 
44 What is man that Thou at mindful of him ? 99 

For fifteen centuries this question has had this meaning, 
and has been made to serve this use. And for thirteen 
centuries this meaning and use have been the most powerful 
influence to hinder the growth of the Life, which we 
believe to be the true Life of the world. From them the 
terrors of diabolic presence had their inspiration ; the 
horrors of magic and of witchcraft, the wars of dominating 
sects, and the persecutions of ecclesiastical, inquisitions : — 
in fact, all the dreadful results that a low estimate of 
human nature will produce. From the first, they divided 
the world into " the kingdom of God and the kingdom of 
Satan. " The few elect churches composed the one, and 
all else of man and nature, the other. From the first, the 
two Powers were declared to be in conflict. Every scoff at 
creed or Christian was thought to be at the instigation of 
the Devil, and so, every conversion of a blasphemer was 
said to be the effect of a wonderful divine condescension 
and a triumph of grace. 

Then came into prominence Demonology. Not only 
was Satan thought to be active in the midst of a captive 
humanity, endeavoring to destroy God's partially successful 
work ; but he was served by a host of fallen angels ; 
thus making loving Grace more and more wonderful. 
With the demons the blaze of their grossly material hell 
became brighter and brighter ; and death, said to be a direct 
effect of the transgression in Eden, became an opening 
from this life, through which rebellious men were justly 
thrust into torture with their kindred fiends. 

When, in the Sixth Century, as the author of the 
" History of Eationalism in Europe " says, " the victory of 
Christianity over paganism, considered as an external 
system, and the corruption of Christianity itself, were both 
complete/' then commenced the almost unquestioned rule 
of the plea of our text, considered as the cry of the humbled 
soul. Satanic power, and Satanic presence were profound 
and universal. 

From the awe-sticken Church went up the cry to the 



1S68 



" DIGNITY OF HUMAN NATURE" 



123 



Eedeeming Diety ; a cry into which a meaning was put, of 
which we can have no conception, " What is man that Thou 
art mindful of him ?" From awe before God, the Church 
changed to anger towards men. The iniquitous race, it was 
determined, could not be judged too severely by the earthly 
representatives of the " Kingdom of God." " Why should 
a sinner against Holy Law live ? " It was asked for 
justification, " Is he not already doomed as a rebel 
against Deity ? " David's Psalms of vengeance then became 
ecclesiastical inspirations. It was declared to be doing 
God service, to blot off from the earth those who mani- 
fested any antagonism to the supposed Divine Grace. 
Doubt became a subject of discipline and penance. Heresy 
was judged to be crime worthy of death. 

After the Crusades came the Oriental enlightenment, 
and so " the Revival of Letters. " Then the Christian 
paganism was subjected to what is called the " Reforma- 
tion." But still the cry of cur text went up to God, ascending 
as the summation of a false theology's decisions concerning 
Man. More than ever, the Devil was declared to be a 
really existent Being, owning demons and humanity, as a 
master possesses slaves. An indescribable force was given 
to PauPs expressions, the " Prince of the power of the 
air," and the " God of this world." 

The Theology of the Reformation, more even than that 
of Rome, rested on a system of terrorism. It held up, in 
dark and authoritative speech, the natural degradation of 
the race, and the power of evil spirits. The climax of the 
Satanic life was then reached. It was Witchcraft and its 
persecution. For some time, this curious phenomenon of 
superstitious supernaturalism had been gradually manifest- 
ing itself. In the Twelfth Century, there was added to the 
prevalent belief in Satan, his active demons and his captive 
humanity, the idea that, in addition to the general work 
humanity was doing for " the devil's kingdom," there 
were employed very special agents, who were men and 
women. This idea in after years produced and destroyed 
witches. It was helped in its development by many 
causes, but by none more than the Black Death, a mysterious 
disease, which in six years destroyed, in Europe, one-fourth 



124 



FEOM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



of its population, and which ^vas attributed to malignant 
demoniac influences. Then, in the universal terror, reap- 
peared the Flagellants ; and then arose " the Dancers" in 
Central Europe who proclaimed, in thousands of numbers, 
with wild leapings and shrieks of fear, the power and 
triumph of Satan. 

At the time of the Reformation the results of these 
things culminated. There were then in Europe the 
Church of Eome and its Protestants arrayed against each 
other ; each party asserting its infallibility and each making 
common cause in its estimate of Human Nature by crush- 
ing every attempt it made at independence. The land was 
filled with civil and social debauchery, persecution, crime, 
terror and anarchy. 

But the Reformation, with all its vice, commenced a 
better life for Christianity than that which Rome had 
fostered. It gave some little liberty to the right of private 
judgment. It professed the principle of Protestantism 
which now has its freedom assured. At first, however, for 
the rule of the Pope it substituted the'authority of the Book. 
But the Reformers assumed the right to determine what are 
the Bible's doctrines. The existence of the fallen Archangel 
and his host ; of the ruin of man, and of the total depravity of 
all of Adam's posterity ; of hell and redemption from hell by 
the atonement on Calvary, were made the dogmas of the 
Reformation. The old cry, therefore, still was heard, 
" What is man that thou art mindful of Him ? " The 
same story of blood, therefore, is to be told of Protestantism 
as of Rome. 

But, notwithstanding all these things, it is true, as said 
before, that the Reformation commenced a better life than 
that which Rome fostered. Protestantism, to a certain 
extent, was claimed and established as an individual right. 
Men became gradually more free. The theology which 
produced the ghastly facts to which we have referred, was 
taken from the civil administration and remanded to the 
Churches which originated it. So rapid has been the 
progress of ecclesiastical liberty, that now the State has 
ignored the theology of the Reformation. We are protected 
by law in coming here* to-day and in making this criticism 



1368 



" DIGNITY OF HUMAN NATURE " 



125 



upon it. The disciples of the literalism of the teachings of 
Melanchthon and Calvin have liberty to stand in their 
pulpits and defend, with words only, what we condemn. 
For the promulgation of their doctrines, times have so 
changed, that they now have legal right to face the audi- 
ences who go to hear them preach; but they must wait on 
the free decision of each mind that listens to them. They 
have no more powerful right than merely to declare that 
there is an omnipotent (?) God who has had his authority 
wrested from him by Satan against his will ; and pray, in 
view of the partial redemption made, " "What is man that 
Thou art mindful of him ? " 

They can refuse fellowship to heretics ; they can issue 
modern bulls of excommunication, and threaten a future 
judgment ; but they are powerless to execute physical 
torture. They have no liberty now to use the rack, or 
the stake, or the " soaking bit," or the poison cup, or 
the water test. We are free. We are guaranteed by the 
mature strength of Protestantism, individual liberty ; free- 
dom to worship God as we are inspired to worship Him. 
So much for the understanding and use of our text during 
the past thirteen centuries. 

Its original meaning and what should be its right use are 
found in the Bible where the words are written. There 
we find the Psalmist giving utterance to a thought as hope- 
ful and as full of faith as it is possible to have. The 
whole writing shows that its Medieval meaning was 
altogether a misapprehension, and its use now a misappli- 
cation. 

The Hebrew singer meditated on the excellence of the 
being he trusted as bis Jehovah. Above him, perhaps, was 
the cloudless sky of Palestine ; about him the stillness of 
the night time. All the shining beauty, all the celestial 
glory, he thought of as the work of his God. In the 
fervor of his adoration he exclaimed, " When I consider 
thy heavens the work thy fingers, the moon and the stars 
which thou hast ordained ; what is man that thou art 
mindful of him ? " He was overwhelmed with the majesty 
of God and the apparent feebleuess of Man. Then he 
thought again, instead of man's degradation oppressing 



12G 



FEOM CREED TO FAITH 



PABT I 



hiro, all the dignity of human nature filled his soul, and he 
continued : "For thou hast made him a little lower than the 
angels and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou 
madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands. 
Thou hast put all things under his feet. O ! Lord, our 
Lord ! how excellent is thy name in all the earth! " 

There is no voice of terror from the lips of the confiding 
Hebrew. No contemplation of God's holiness and Man's 
vileness, and then a cry of amazement that God should 
visit him as a Eedeemer. There is only a wondrous con- 
ception of the glory of the Maker of the Heavens that 
compelled David to ask why such Majesty should he mind- 
ful of a poor dweller on the earth; and then a great reali- 
zation of a human dignity worthy of divine care. 

I think we know now, more even than David knew, that 
if there is anywhere goodness on earth, there is goodness 
in Man, If there is any being possessed of a natural 
longing for the true and beautiful, Man has such aspiration 
If anywhere nobility seeks its own, it seeks its own in 
Man. There is holiness, aspiration and grandeur in Man, 
if anywhere. He is the highest creature of whom there is 
earthly knowledge, He is the moral creature. He is in 
ceaseless struggle with everything degrading. He retains 
in his tenderest recollections, the deeds purity inspires. 
Vice is set aside or condemned in the histories he loves to 
write. The good that men do lives after them. Man is 
the creature possessed of a constant aspiration for the reali- 
zation of some divine ideal of life. The vision of his 
seers is one of human life inspired by love. 

It is a fond look to that time when war shall only be 
recollection ; revealing the sweetness of peace by means of 
its horrors. It has present with it the thought that has 
made every golden age of the past, and prophesies every 
millennium of the future. It foresees the blessed reign of 
righteousness, when all our present institutions for bene- 
ficence shall have done the work for which they are made, 
and shall be transformed into helps for the new dominion; 
when law shall have done with crime ; when intelligence, 
philanthropy and piety shall crown every community, and 
assure to each person a permanent royalty. Man is a 



1868 



" DIGNITY OF HUMAN NATURE " 



127 



spirit, and, as such, is an image of what we call Deity. 
It is not w T onderful, then, that He to whom " man is like 
in kind," though from Whom " he is infinitely distant in 
degree," should be mindful of him. To this faith the 
race is true. If, for a few hundred years, darkness 
settles over this life, and it is declared that man is an alien 
from heaven, and an ally of the Devil ; — if a theology, full 
of an impossible Satan, cries out against the nature of the 
noblest work of God, wondering why Deity is mindful of 
so foul a creature as Man, a divine light at last dispels the 
darkness, and we believe with the Psalmist that we are 
" crowned with glory and honor." 

Therefore, dear, friends, cast off your early teachings con- 
cerning our text, if they are now burdening you From this 
city, to day, with but two exceptions, the cry has gone up 
from pulpits which should elevate Man, a repetition of our 
text, with the meaning that Mediaeval diabolism, and an 
early Manichaeism have been giving. You might go 
from church to church and hear in each one the same 
dolorous refrain. Each sermon, if true to the preacher's 
creed, is aimed at making men feel that of all creatures 
Man is the worst ; for, with such high possibilities, 
he has degraded himself so low. We know that the words 
are growing feebler every day ; we know that the 
Satanic presence and the original sin of to-day are like 
angelic life and holiness compared with those preached by 
bishops and priests seven hundred years ago ; by the pul- 
pits of Geneva and of the Kirks of Scotland since the 
Eeformation ; but it is still true, that the Westminster 
Confession, the Thirty- nine Articles, the Heidelberg 
Catechism, &c, which seem more like black flags raised 
against Humanity, than the white banners of the living 
Prince of Peace, are Church standards. Is there, then, not 
a demand from every article of the faith we have, to assert 
the meaning of the Psalmist to be the right meaning ? 
We should not permit our nature and the power and 
wisdom of God to be so maligned as it is by the meaning 
which the Popular Theology has given this great thought. 

God was wise enough in the Day of Creation ; and He 
has made Man and everything else after the plan of His 



128 



FEOM CBEED TO FAITH 



PAHT I 



heart. Iam sure, too, He has been powerful enough to keep 
Man and everything else, in the way in which at creation 
He ordained them to move. Be free then, and show your . 
freedom by making others free. What sorrow Christen- 
dom felt when Satan universally was thought to be a 
successful rival of God ! How sorcery, magic, witchcraft, 
torture, burning, poisoning and murder revelled. Tender- 
ness died in the heart. Cruelty took the part of holiness. 
When the estimate of Human Nature rose ; when men 
began to think of each person as a child of God, and worth 
what a being having God's parentage is worth, we received 
knowledge, patience, justice and love. May the time 
hasten, when every vestige of superstition shall be taken 
from the paths of the world ; when all the temples now 
reared to crush Man, shall be used to ennoble him. 

It will come, friends, as certainly as this present glorious 
day has come ; this day when we can assemble here and say 
to each other, without fear of the stake, that the Middle 
Age cry of our text and its modern reproduction are wrong, 
and that David's adoration was right." 

Upon request this sermon, with all its crudities of 
expression and its unbalanced emphasis, was published in 
one of the city's papers. Immediately it started a news- 
paper controversy in which, as one commentator afterwards 
said, " there is no knowing how many pens would have 
been leveled at the offending heretic," had not the editor 
of the publishing journal forbidden the use of his columns. 
But I note that one writer who came to my defense charac- 
terized me, in general, then, "as a man whose voice gives 
forth no indefinite sound, and who is not afraid to speak 
the truth as he conceives it, honestly and fearlessly.' 9 
He said, also, that while I was "rationalistic and dogmatic" 
I was also " reverent and devotional." Moreover, he added, 
" having so lately left the Orthodox sects, and knowing 
the significance of their modes of expression " I was "ever 



1868 CHAEACTEB OF EOCHESTER MINISTRY 129 



careful in the use of Orthodox phrases which convey to 
many hearers a false and delusive impression." 

Another friend, impressed by the boldness which had 
become distinctive, then, of my preaching, sent to me, in 
manuscript, some laudatory verses, later publishing them 
in one of the local papers, under the title, "To a Champion 
of Truth" beginning them with the encouraging greeting;— 

u Go on, go on thou fearless one ; 

Broad fields of truth flame bright before thee, 
And thou hast caught their bloom of thought 

From happy angels hov'ring o'er thee " I 

If dull cares press in heaviness, 

Upon thy spirit's lofty yearnings, 
And friends turn cold when thou art bold, 

To count Wrong's losses and Right's earnings, 

Lift up thine eyes; old Error dies, 

From thrusts at Truth, by foes strong handed, 

And evermore Time's wreck-strewn shore 

Is dark with Satan's ships, self-stranded ! 99 

One stanza of the verses, however, gave so much of a real 
poetic phrasing to one of the most tragic facts of history 
that I repeat it also, — 

" And if we slay a Christ to-day 

Without a blush of shame or sorrow, 
Ere night has sped we love the dead 

And crown him Christ divine to-morrow.'* 



c. Charade?' of the Rochester Ministry. My ministry 
at Eochester, it is probably needless to say, was used very 
seriously ; yet, I think now, with an extravagant sense of 
its importance. It was given during a process of vividly 
conscious emancipation from my ancestral Creed. Many 
of my pulpit themes were chosen because of the oppor- 
tunity they gave me to contrast my newly found liberty 



130 



FEOM CREED TO FAITH 



PABT I 



with the old bondage. My preaching was not intentionally 
a stirrer-up of controversy ; but it gave me a sort of 
notoriety, or, rather, a reputation not generally commended. 
I received quite a number of denunciatory letters, some of 
them consigning me to the " nethermost pit of everlasting 
damnation : " but, contrariwise, I had, also, letters which 
were far from wrathful. One, which comforted me, was 
from an anonymous friend who said,™ 

" When listening to your sermon last Sunday, which 
was much to me because of your sublime faith, I wondered 
how you learned it. Colleges do not teach it, do they ? 
nor books that I have seen. Very few people see the 
glorious truth you preach. At least I have not met them." 

Probably like periods come into the experience of every 
man who earnestly seeks to know the highest forms of 
truth, and, at length, finds himself freed from inherited 
limitations, and exalted by visions of what he is convinced 
are the treasures sought. 

1. In that Eochester sojourn I attempted to make ex- 
cursions into the domain of Comparative Religion ; also to 
go much farther than I had yet gone into the histories of 
the Philosophies that have most held man's allegiance. I 
was even venturesome enough to occupy the Sunday even- 
ings of February, 1869, with what I ignorantly fancied 
were critical lectures on some great " Forms of Religion ;" 
characterizing — 

A. " Buddhism," as " the extreme activity of Self in 
relation to Deity." 

B. " Positivism," as " the extreme activity of Self in 
relation to Nature " and 

C. " Christianity," as " the balanced activity of Self in 



1368 



CESSATION OF HOME PROTESTS 



131 



its relations to both Deity and Nature 99 : giving as the 
closing lecture, a discourse on 

D. * 'Christianity in its Relation to American Civilization. " 

2, While I was in Rochester I proposed a reorganiza- 
tion of our Church, which was accepted. We stated that we 
were associated " for the purpose of worship and philan- 
thropy on the broadest possible basis in accordance with 
our religious ideals/' " Conscious of our dependence on the 
Supreme Being ; and believing that the active fraternity of 
all human beings is essential to the welfare of mankind," 
we announced our belief in "the Christian law of ( Love to 
God and Love to Man ' as our best rule of life, and Jesus 
Christ as the highest exemplification of that rule." Then 
we declared, " because we believe in our personal freedom 
and responsibility, we make no further declaration of 
faith." 

3. At Rochester, too, I received from my home- folk 
their final protests against my new position and work. 

I had sent to my relatives, as least likely to offend 
and pain them, a published sermon on " The Voices of 
Autumn" a sermon in which I sought to interpret — 

" The wonderful message coming from Him who had 
crowned the year with goodness. 99 " Whose voice can be 
heard wherever we go : — in the breath of the breeze, in 
the rustle of the crisp leaf, in the flutter of the earth bound 
foliage, and in the crackle of the fallen seed and twigs 
under our feet." 

" The Author and Disposer of Life " I said " is present 
in the splendors of light and color which characterize this 
time of the year : in the whole scene of sky and earth. 
His limitless beauty and goodness are traceable every- 
where." 

The sermon was intended to be an idyl of faith and of 
resignation, pictured in the natural phenomena of the 



132 



FROM CEEED TO FAITH 



PART I 



Northern Autumn. At my home, so I learned from an 
acknowledgment of its receipt, the sermon was "read with 
much pleasure, and the text " — ' "We all do fade as a leaf,' 
— " was appropriate for the season." 

" But why do you not preach more of Christ ? Do 
you ignore Him entirely ? Why select such subjects 
as ' Covetousness/ ' Death , and the like. I know it 
is fashionable to preach upon ' sensational ' subjects, 
but man's spiritual good is not much advantaged 
thereby. To me it would be feeding on ' husks ' to 
listen to such themes. The spirit would be wanting ; 
the unction of Grace lacking. I know not how your 
people feel, or what they like. But for their 
souls' sake and for your own soul's sake I wish you 
would preach to them something else than these kerneless 
nothings." 

" All your relatives and friends unite in regret that you 
have broken with our Church, however satisfied you may 
feel. Between the Church with which you are connected 
and all the Churches in this region there is no intercourse. 
Therefore your life to us is a blank. Still we trust that 
you may become an instrument for good in the hands of 
an all-wise God." 

One more letter of disapproval and reproach I find 
among my papers. This letter, so far as I remember, 
closed the direct opposition made to my new position and 
work by those nearest to me. I had sent, later in the 
winter, several more of my published sermons. One of 
them was entitled, " The True Light now Shineth." 

" By the way " came the question from home, " why is 
it that you go out of your way to attack all other denomi- 
tions as you did in the sermon from which I saw an 
extract, about ' the True Light Shining ? ' I can see no 
necessity for that wholesale condemnation of everybody 
and everything else than yourselves, — especially when so 
many can not see their way clear to think as you do. I 



1869 CESSATION OF HOME PROTESTS 133 

should think that you would rather want to cultivate a 
spirit of fraternity with the other preachers and other 
denominations, instead of repelling them by condemnation 
of their beliefs. 

It also seems singular to me that any clergyman should 
preach upon " The Opening of the Pacific Bailroad." 
What lessons of instruction in a religious way can be 
drawn from it, I don't see. Nor how anything can be 
said upon it to profit a man's soul. For a non-religious 
lecture, I can well see that it would be a vast theme. But 
how any religious people can tolerate sermons upon 
themes so foreign to the Gospel, I can't see. 

You must not take offence at my referring to this 
subject and expressing my thoughts. Why a watchman 
on the Walls of Zion, — a leader of the flocks of the Lord — 
should waste his time upon such and kindred subjects, is 
strange to my old-fashioned teachings. It is so contrary 
to all I have been accustomed to, — so contrary to the 
purpose of the Gospel, — that I can't help wondering why 
it is so,-— and if the cause is to be found in your present 
ideas of the Unity of God." 

In noting the close of this long, and at times distressing, 
opposition to the change that had been affecting my 
religious beliefs and acts, from those whose approval I 
should have most enjoyed, I am glad to remember that, 
not many years afterwards, the principal writer of these 
letters became reconciled to what had seemed a betray alof my 
spiritual inheritance. At length, himself, icas frankly 
sympathetic with me in much of the larger faith which, 
with so much tribulation, I had made my own. 

4. Also, while I was at Kochester, I received from one 
of the Liberal ministers who had made himself secure in 
his fellowship with the Orthodox Congregational Churches, 
and had earnestly advised me at Morrison to remain in 
the Congregational communion, a letter that disclosed so 
much about himself, and is so significant an illustra- 



134 . FEOM CEEED TO FAITH PABT I 



tion of what was far from being rare at that time in 
the " Orthodox " ministry, that I will quote somewhat 
from it. 

" I have been planting seed patiently here for years, 

and really did not know how much of a harvest would 
come to light on call. But the result reproves me for my 
lack cf faith. I consider that faith in the ghastly the- 
ologies of the old dispensation is pretty much gone, and 
nothing but the creed is left, which folks hold onto like 
drowning people to a plank. Oh ! if the pulpits had only 
been nourishing faith, for these groaning centuries past: — 
but they have been about other business, and then have 
had the impudence to complain that the world is lapsing 
into infidelity. 

I like my Church a trifle better then yours, because it 
has no theological name. There is something to my 
mind a little exclusive in a theological name, even tho' it 
may be to you and me philosophically a true one. If I 
were to write " Unitarian " over my church door, I would 
scare off some Trinitarians who need medicating with 
liberal truth. And so, it seems to me that our Liberal 
friends have got to take a more generous posture, (I do not 
say spirit) towards benighted Orthodoxy. 

Mr. spoke to me of your church ; and I told 

him he ought to have preached so that there would have 
been no need of an Unitarian Church. Liberalism is doing 
• glorious work, not as a sect or as a Church, but as a spirit. 
It is the invisible leaven, and I find hardly a soul that is 
not being more or less affected by it. My society re- 
instated me in my pulpit on the broadest terms which I 
wrote out, and which were voted to be recorded on the 
books as a part of our ecclesiastical history, I ain to have 
freedom to invite any big heretic of either sex into my 
pulpit, and to preach in any heretical pulpit where I can 
get a chance. Both " houses/' — Church and Society — 
sustain " My policy.'' And so, if the good Lord will give 
me health during my vacation, I shall unsheath the sword 
again, and go in for another campaign of the " holy war." 
God bless and prosper you in all your work." 



1869 



CLOSE OF BOCHESTEK MINISTRY 



135 



d. Why 1 left Rochester. — With the passing of the 
year the same feeling which disturbed me in Detroit, and 
eventually caused me to welcome the change from that 
city to Rochester, began to affect me. I was practically 
without ministerial associates or near by pulpit exchanges 
in Rochester, and, so far, had made very few acquaintances 
among the ministers of the Unitarian Churches generally. 
I was not a Boston, or a Harvard man, who had separated 
himself from a long-held domicile in or near the head- 
quarters of the faith ; well prepared by education, and such 
association, to be a Unitarian worker in a distant mission 
field. I was, by antecedents, wholly an alien among the 
Unitarian Churches,— " a voice crying in the wilderness." 

More and more, I became aware of my comparative 
ignorance of the learning with which the New England 
ministers were familiar. Moreover, I could not rid myself 
of the feeling that I should never become a really serviceable 
preacher of Liberal Christianity, until I had been long 
and intimately in contact with the personal and institu- 
tional influences which were dominant in Eastern New 
England. 

In large part, this was the reason w T hy, in some vacation 
weeks that I had in the summer of 1869, I preached in 
several of the Unitarian Churches which were kept open, in 
and near Boston. My preaching was not, avowedly, that 
of a candidate for a pulpit, but, I must acknowledge, it was 
with the feeling that I should enjoy the favored environ- 
ment of the New England Churches, could I be invited 
into it. Had I been New England born and reared, 
possibly I might have been actuated differently. 

Before the year of my engagement with the Church at 
Rochester had closed, I was invited cordially to remain with 



136 



FEOM CEEED TO FAITH 



it as its regular minister. But I had decided by this 
time to seek a parish in New England. I declined the 
generous offer, making clear to my friends just why I had 
decided to go eastward. 

On October 11th, 1869, the Rochester Society by a un- 
animous vote sent me the following letter. 

" Whereas, the Eev. Clay McCauley has completed the 
term for which he accepted the pastorate of our Society, 
and has declined our call for a continuance of his services 
among us : therefore, to express our regard for him person- 
ally, and our appreciation of his services while with us, it is 

Besolved, That, in parting w T ith Mr. McjCauley, we. part 
with a pastor whose public ministrations have been marked 
by devotion, by earnest thought, and by great ability, pro- 
mising to him in the future a high place among the 
clergy of our denomination : that, in the discharge of his 
less public duties we have found him kind and 
sympathizing, and we assure him of our warm personal 
esteem ; bidding him God-speed, with hearty wishes and 
affectionate regard." 

The Bochester Chronicle, noting the event, said. — 

Eev. Clay McCauley, who has been preaching in the 
First Unitarian Church in this city for a year past, has de- 
clined a call to remain here. He will return to Boston 
and spend some months in recreation and literary pursuits, 
before settling down in any church. During his stay in 
this city, Mr. McCauley has made many ardent friends. 
He is one of the most promising of the present school of 
Unitarian clergymen, and advocates progress. His anxiety 
to work for the good of his fellow men is peculiarly marked, 
and we hope he may be spared many years, as we are 
quite positive his influence for good will be felt and appre- 
ciated. 

4. 

Pastorate at Waltham. 

Two months afterwards, November 29th, 1869, " The 
Krst Parish " in Waltham, Massachusetts, extended to 




At Waltham, Massachusetts, 1869 




Annie Deane MacCauley 



1869 • INSTALLATION AT WALTHAM 137 



me a most welcome invitation to become its pastor. I 
think that I could not have found a better opportunity for 
rendering the benefit to myself and the service to my fellow 
beings, which I sought, than were made available from 
the vantage ground of this ancient Liberal Parish. I 
gladly responded to the call ; and, for more than three 
years thereafter, had what was to me a thoroughly happy, 
and, also to me, a most memorable ministry. 

At last, so I felt, I was surrounded by just the influences 
and opportunities I needed for an adequate preparation for. 
and fulfilment of, the work I had undertaken. The years 
of lonely struggle and of embarrasing isolation were past. 
I began to find clarity and order in my thinking, which 
hitherto was much confused. I was gradually freed from 
the controversial mood which took possession of me soon 
after emancipation from the awful creed of Calvin ; and I 
began to find myself in serene and increasingly assured 
possession of the Faith I had won: — the Faith which, 
ever since, I have held as the dearest and the most 
helpful treasure of both my brain and heart. 

a. Installation at Waltham, Massachusetts,- — I was 
installed pastor of " The First Parish in Waltham," 
December 29th, 1869. A local journal describing the 
event, said, — 

" On Wednesday of this week an important step was 
taken, in the installation of Eev. Clay McCauley, late of 
Eochester, as the minister of the First Parish. The installing 
council met at one o'clock. The Society has every con- 
venience for social gatherings, and entertained their friends 
with a warm-hearted hospitality. 

The exercises in the church began at two o'clock, P.M., 
at which time a large congregation had gathered. The 



138 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART 1 



interior of the building gave evidence of taste and handi- 
work by the character of the decorations. 

Eev. Thomas Hill, a former pastor, after the organ 
voluntary, made the opening prayer, and Eev. James C. 
Parsons, another ex- pastor, read the Scriptures. 

The sermon, which succeeded the hymn, was given by 
Rev. C. C. Everett. He preached on the true nature and 
duties of the priesthood, taking his text from Hebrews 
5 : 10, " Called of God after the order of Melchisedec." The 
sermon abounded in rich, strong thought, and was very 
able. Eev. James Freeman Clarke then consecrated the 
new minister by a deep and earnest prayer. The charge, 
by Dr. Stearns of the Cambridge Divinity School, was full 
of wise suggestions, broad and generous in tone, and 
eminently fitted to give the preacher a larger idea of his 
duties and work. Eev. Mr. Chaney's right hand of fellow- 
ship came from his heart. His words were freighted with 
cordial sympathy, and he welcomed his brother with 
friendly greeting. At this point in the service a few sen- 
tences were chanted by the choir, after which the Eev. 
Augustas Woodbury gave the people an excellent address, 
in which he urged upon them many practical duties. The 
services closed by prayer from Eev. Eichard Metcalf, and 
the benediction by the pastor.' ' 

I wrote for this installation a hymn, to which, however, 
I was not willing then to attach my name. It was sung 
after Mr. Woodbury's " Address to the People." I repeat 
it among these " Memories/' making only a verbal change 
in the first stanza. 

Installation Hymn. 

Holy Spirit, source of Blessing ! 

Bearer of the Father's grace ! 
May the Church thy Power possessing, 

Fill the earth with heavenly Peace. 
We, with filial trust, aspiring, 

Seek Thee, face to face, to-day, 
Faith, and Hope, and Love desiring 

For our Truth, our Life, our Way. 



1869 



INSTALLATION AT WALTHAM 



139 



Suffer not our Truth to languish ! 

Keep us from Temptation's harm ! 
Be our help in joy and anguish, 

Day and night, in calm and storm. 
When we walk by light surrounded, 

Guide us as Thou seest best. 
When we faint, in gloom confounded, 

Give us humble faith and rest. 

In this solemn act of union, 

Church with Pastor, — both with Thee, — 
May Thyself, in full communion, 

Clearly manifested be. 
May we see thy revelation, 

Made in Christ, the perfect Love ; 
Find in Him our aspiration, 

Heaven on earth, like heaven above. 

Another newspaper added to a like description of the 
installation the comment, — 

" The hearty congratulations of the friends of our Unit- 
arian faith are given to this strong, flourishing and now 
made happy society, and the belief from every quarter is 
expressed that a union has there 'been formed that will 
prove one of great satisfaction and usefulness. 55 

When I assumed the pastorate of the Waltham parish, 
as I saw clearly in after years, my intellectual Sturm and 
Drang period had been fully passed through. I was at 
last so situated that I could begin to make really intelli- 
gible use of the exalted Faith I had won. 



140 



CHAPTER FIFTH* 
THE FAITH I HAD GAINED 

As the ministry in Waltham had practically no con- 
nection with the conflict through which I passed in the 
winning of my Faith, there is no need to recall here much 
of my personal experiences during the years in which I was 
honored with that office. 

a. Lessening of Controversial Mood. — One notable 
fact in that ministry, however, is of interest for these 
" Memories/' Consequent upon a free, rational study of 
the Christian origins, and an increasing acquaintance with 
the science and philosophy of the times, my emancipation 
from the Creed of Calvin had been accompanied, as I have 
said, by a controversial mood. 

With the settlement in Waltham this mood rapidly 
lessened. I began, moreover, to feel a return of the ardor 
characteristic of my Orthodox youth. This warmth of 
emotion soon became all pervading. Ere long I was 
confident that any lasting and genuine usefulness I might 
gain as a Unitarian minister would depend, in large mea- 
sure, upon my positive attitude, as a teacher of Faith 
rather than of doubt ; and upon seeking, for myself and 
the people, sincerity and fervor as professed followers of 
Jesus Christ. Intellectually, I was thoroughly rationalistic, 
critical, and radical ; but religiously, I was profoundly 
moved by spiritual aspiration, and by " intuition " of 
ideals. In my reading, I remember, I found, to my great 



1869 SUMMARY OF MY FAITH 



141 



joy, a new " friend in the spirit/' who made amply good 
the loss I had borne in parting fellowship with " Robert 
Murray McCheyne," the spiritual comrade of my Or- 
thodox youth. The new friend was " Frederick W. 
Robertson," a knightly saint of the English Broad Church. 
For many years I received unfailing inspiration from the 
writings of this free, brave and aspiring spirit. He seem- 
ed to me to realize the Christian " Ideal." 

This restoration of the religious sensibility of the earlier 
years gave me a great deal of happiness. And I am 
sure, now, that the devotion consequent upon its revival went 
far to guide my Waltham ministry into the happy and 
measurably useful service it gradually achieved in both 
parish and community. 

1. 

Summary of my Faith. 

It will be well, I think, to take the opportunity which 
this recollection of that restful Waltham ministry gives, to 
summarize the articles of the Faith I had won during the 
tribulations of the three preceding years. I find much of 
that Faith quite well presented in some articles which I 
published in the Christian Eegister, during the weeks that 
elapsed between my leaving Rochester and my installation 
at Waltham, together with some special addresses made 
while I was minister in Waltham. The Faith embodied 
in these papers and addresses may be regarded, so far as 
the substance of its tenets about the Christ and Christianity 
is concerned, and so far as its fundamental philosophic 
and theologic principles are involved, as the Faith that 
has since that time been dominant in my religious specula- 
tions and convictions. 



142 



FBOM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



This Faith became mine through much trying per- 
sonal struggle ; and it has ever been cherished as essentially 
the nearest approximation to spiritual, or religions, truth 
possible for me. All the studies and discoveries of the 
years since it was won have but served to show this Faith 
in new lights ; or have specialized and amplified it ; and also 
have disclosed for it, by its harmonious relations with many 
other forms of sincere faith, an approximation to universal 
value. It shines for me, still, as " the master light of all 
my seeing opening for me a way to the deepest appre- 
hension of God ; of Christ; and of the nature and the career 
of Man, that have been possible to my brain and heart. 

I. 

An Apology for Christianity. 

The articles which I wrote for the Christian Begister, 
just before I was called to the Waltham pastorate, were 
entitled " An Apology for Christianity — the word ft apo- 
logy, " of course, being used in its technical sense. In 
literary quality the articles, naturally, were quite crude. 

The immediate reason for their w T riting was that, at the 
time, (1869), there were among my new friends a good 
many who, under the name " Radical," were disposed to 
give up their " Christian v confession. I was a very im- 
mature novice among them ; but I believed that these " Ra- 
dical " friends were not at all antagonistic to the " Chris- 
tianity of Christ/' but only to " Christianity " as identified 
with the. dogmatic cult of the historic Ecclesiasticism which 
has borne the name of Christ. 

My purpose, therefore, was to show " by a free 
investigation of the reported words of the Founder of Christ- 
ianity, and by a free comparison of the religion of Christ 



1869 APOLOGY FOB CHRISTIANITY: I 143 



with other forms of Religion, that Christianity is worthy 
of the respect and allegiance of those who have the best 
knowledge. ,, So soon was it that I, who had ventured all 
in gaining freedom from my Inherited Creed, was impelled 
to put myself forward as conservative of the Faith I had 
won. 

A. — THE FIRST PROPOSITION. 

No 'Religious 'Reformation has originated in a surer 
Radicalism than that of which Jesus Christ was the Soid 
and John the Baptist the Herald. 

We nowhere read of more revolutionary words than 
those heard in " the country round about Jordan," when 
" the Baptist " began to proclaim the "baptism of repen- 
tance for the remission of sins," instead of the ancestral priv- 
ileges of the Hebrew nation and the rites of the Temple, 
John set aside the most cherished traditions of the elders. 
He claimed to be " a voice crying in the wilderness," those 
wonderful words of Isaiah, ending, " and all flesh shall see 
the salvation of God." He met the multitudes, who came 
to him for baptism, with the severest questions and most 
rigid demands. Though a Jew, he ignored a Jew's 
proudest possession, his national birthright. He said, 
"Bring forth fruits worthy of repentance and begin not 
to say within yourselves, ' We have Abraham to our 
father;' for I say unto you that God is able of these 
stones to raise up children to Abraham." He insisted 
upon the uselessness, in religion, of the honors of family 
or nation, for " the axe is laid unto the root of the trees. 
Every tree, therefore, which bringeth not forth good fruit, 
is hewn down and cast into the fire." Those who had 
possessions and sought his advice, he told to divide their 
clothing and food w 7 ith the needy ; the publicans, to gather 
their taxes with justice ; the soldiers, to be merciful and 
contented. He dared to say boldly to Herod, whose in- 
cestuous conduct endangered the purity of the nation, 
" It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife." 
Until his death, with a heroism never surpassed, John the 



144 



FROM €REED TO FAITH 



PART I 



Baptist proclaimed goodness of life to be the supreme 
human duty. 

After the imprisonment of John, Jesus of Nazareth 
commenced the great work of which " the Baptist " had 
prophesied, and to which he had been baptized. His 
voice was the same as that of his cousin. It was the call 
for repentance and godliness, as necessary for every soul. 
Then was made the homily from the hill-side, called the 
" Sermon on the Mount/' which we shall see was the in- 
spiration of the whole life of Jesus. In it, rigid morality 
and charity were held up as the great virtues. Claiming 
that he did " not come to destroy the law and the 
prophets,'' the preacher went on to say that for which 
any Pharisee would willingly have stoned him to death. 
He made the holy law of Moses the basis on which to put 
his own deeper truths. " Ye have heard that it hath 
been said/' — " but I say unto you," he repeated over and 
over again, adding some more radical truth at each repeti- 
tion ; one of the vital moralities which have since given 
Christianity its transcendent power. He closed the dis- 
course with the astounding declaration that though any one 
might call, never so vehemently, to him, "Lord ! Lord !" 
one should not enter the Kingdom of Heaven unless he 
should do the will of the Father in heaven. 

Not one word of theology was uttered in this first 
sermon except recognition of God as the universal Father ; 
not one belief offered for a "creed" except faith in holiness ; 
not one system of rites and ordinances was proposed 
except that of trusting God in the heart and doing good 
from the heart. Throughout his life, Jesus insisted upon 
the practice of goodness as essential in the life of man. 
He sought, with an untiring diligence, to deliver the soul 
from every bondage of form into the liberty of spirit. 
Among his last words were scathing denunciations of 
the ecclesiastical Scribes and Pharisees, sitting in Moses's 
seat, and binding heavy burdens, and laying them on 
men's shoulders ; broadening their phylacteries, enlarging 
the borders of their garments ; putting themselves forward 
in the synagogues ; shutting up the Kingdom of Heaven 
against men ; compassing sea and land to make one 



1869 APOLOGY FOE CHRISTIANITY I I 145 

proselyte ; making him two-fold more a child of hell than 
themselves ; swearing by the gold on the temple instead of 
the temple, by the gift on the altar instead of the altar ; 
paying tithe of mint, anise and cummin, but omitting the 
weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith ; 
making clean the outside of the cup and the platter, when 
within they were full of extortion and excess ; outwardly 
righteous, but within full of hypocrisy. 

Holiness was the only bondage to which Jesus would 
subject the soul. Each disciple was made a law unto 
himself, except in his relation to the "law of Love to 
God and Man." " Whoever shall do the will of my 
Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother and 
sister and mother." 

There are several records which show the supreme 
charity of Jesus. The church has ill overlooked the story 
in which occur the words, " Forbid him not ; he that is 
not against me is for me." It has also passed by the 
more emphatically liberal lesson taught the angry disciples 
when they besought Jesus to command fire to come down 
from heaven and consume an inhospitable Samaritan 
village. Turning to them he delivered this rebuke which 
should be engraven on every bigot ted Christian pulpit, " Ye 
know not what manner of spirit ye are of. The son of man 
is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." 

But the most wonderful lesson which the Church has 
neglected in its definition of Christianity, is that which is 
contained in the concluding verses of the twenty-third 
chapter of Matthew, where Jesus indignantly says to the 
Pharisees, " Ye build the tombs of the prophets and 
garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, and say," — as so 
many Pharisees are saying to-day about Christ, Huss, 
Servetus, and their followers — " If we had been in the 
days of our fathers we would not have been partakers with 
them in the blood of the prophets ! when ye be ivitnesses 
that ye are the children of them w 7 hich killed the prophets. 
Fill ye up, then, the measure of your fathers. Serpents, 
generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of 
hell? Behold I send unto you prophets and wise men, 
and some of them ye shall kill and crucify ; and some of 



146 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART 1 



them ye shall scourge in your synagogues and persecute 
them from city to city, that upon you may come all the 
righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of 
righteous Abel unto the the blood of Zacharias whom ye 
slew between the temple and the altar." 

But here, indignant as Jesus was, he seemed to remem- 
ber vividly the humanity in his persecutors. His love for 
that turned his anger into pity ; and he cried "O Jerusalem, 
Jerusalem, that killest the prophets and stonest them 
which are sent unto thee, how often would 1 have gathered 
thy children together and ye would not." 

Surely, holiness was the only bondage to which Jesus 
subjected the soul. His religion rests on the pure heart 
It is a plea for holiness in freedom. 

In its resolute proclamation of holy living as the essential 
human duty ; and in its supreme charity, Christianity is 
proven to have endeavored to fix itself on a sure Kadi- 
calism. 

B. — THE SECOND PROPOSITION. 

Though Jesus taught both a Theology and a Beligion, 
he made Theology so subordinate to Religion that ice are 
justified in calling the Christian Beligion, Christianity . 

It is now generally admitted that theology and religion 
do not bear the relation of cause and effect Theology is 
mental ; religion is spiritual. Theology is thought con- 
cerning the nature of the Supreme Being and his mode of 
governing Creation ; Beligion is the soul's mood and conduct 
under consciousness of Deity and in its relations to His 
works. Theologies may have no likeness to each other ; 
religions differ only in degree. Theologies may be antago- 
nistic ; religions are always related. Theologies are as 
separable as human minds ; religions are alike as human 
hearts. Undoubtedly, Jesus taught both a theology and 
a religion ; but he made the former of so little importance, 
compared with the latter, that had he possessed disciples 
of his spirit, his theology would have remained subject to 
the religion which is the life of Christianity, and the 
" Eighteen Christian Centuries" would have been Christian 
in fact. 



1869 



APOLOGY FOR CHRISTIANITY I II 



147 



Jesus was a Jew, and entered on his ministry conscious 
of the unity of Deity ; but being himself, he rose, from the 
thought of Jehovah as the guardian only of the Hebrews, 
to the conception of Him as the Father of all mankind. 
Being a Jew he believed that sinners are in danger of 
eternal death ; but, being the prophet of a " new dispensa- 
tion," he told his assailants, w 7 hen they found him among 
publicans and sinners, violating the Mosaic law, to go and 
learn the meaning of the declaration, " I will have mercy 
and not sacrifice ; " and then he taught his companions 
that he had come to call " the sinners to repentance. " 
Being himself, he claimed to be the divinely appointed 
Mediator between God's mercy and man's repentance ; but, 
as we shall see, he never made belief in this theology an 
essential in the duty he required of mankind. 

As the Mediator, Jesus accepted the name of the 
" Anointed of God," — " the Christ." In this character he 
represented himself as the centre of Christian activity. He 
directed all souls, in penitence, to God as the Saviour, 
but led them to their Saviour through himself. He de- 
clared himself to be " the Way, the Truth, and the 
Life." He called himself " the Door " through which 
men should enter " the Kingdom of Heaven ;" and " the 
Shepherd " who would care for the Christian flock. He 
claimed, royal prerogatives in "the Kingdom of Heaven." 
He healed the sick and preached to the poor ; he gathered 
about him crowds of people who soon covered his fame 
with the acts of Deity. He felt himself to be not only the 
" Son of Man " but the " Son of God." He moved through 
Judea and Galilee, a lonely personality, rapt by the 
wondrous consciousness which had awakened in him. 
His disciples could not understand him. The common 
people heard him gladly ; but they often heard him as they 
would hear the voice of a " god." 

But, never, even in his most exalted moments, did Jesus 
lose his sense of subordination to the Supreme One, or 
claim absolute lordship over the minds of men. While 
he declared his Christly majesty, and directed the world to 
'himself, as " the Way " to heaven, he yet adored the 
glory of the Author of ttiat majesty, and set forth the 



148 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



superiority of a holy life over correct thought, as a 
recommendation to divine favor. " All manner of 
sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men ; but the 
blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven 
unto men. Whosoever speaketh a word against the Son 
of Man it shall be forgiven him, but whosoever speaketh 
against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him, neither 
in this world nor in the world to come. Make the tree 
good and his fruit is good. Make the tree corrupt and his 
fruit is corrupt ; for the tree is known by his fruit." 

The Publican, in the temple, humbly offered his prayer, 
" God be merciful to me a sinner ; " and Jesus said it was 
a sufficient ground for his justification. We do not know 
that the Publican ever saw, or cared about, the Christ. The 
Good Samaritan is represented as thinking nothing more 
theological than how he could save the life of the man he 
found wounded at the roadside ; yet he is chosen as an 
exemplification of Christian conduct. The correctly edu- 
cated priest and Leyite. though servants in the holiest 
place, among the most sacred ordinances, are spoken of as 
men who were not good men, because they were not 
neighbors to him that fell among thieves. We are not told 
that the Good Samaritan ever had a Mediator between 
himself and God, other than his own good heart, And in 
the parable of the Prodigal Son, especially exhibited to show 
the mode of salvation, we are very sure that the only 
Mediator between the father and son was the penitence of 
the weeping prodigal. 

Then, in one of the last discourses of Jesus, where the 
Great Judgment, which he believed must take place at the 
end of the world, is pictured, humanity is separated into 
two parts. Those who have been lovers of holiness ; 
who have fed the hungry; helped the stranger ; clothed the 
naked, and visited the bound, are welcomed into life 
eternal; and those who have not done these things, are 
condemned to everlasting punishment. 

Even while Jesus felt himself to be " the Christ," he pro- 
nounced blasphemy against himself forgivable ; he passed 
by the errors which must have been in the Samaritan's 
mind, and declared him saved on account of his holy life ; 



1869 



APOLOGY FOR CHRISTIANITY : II 



149 



he praised the acts of the publican and prodigal who sought 
the Father face to face ; and he announced salvation to be 
given at the "Great Day" to all who had lived righteously, 
though they had been in life-long ignorance of their Lord's 
existence. 

His theology, Jesus felt to be important, but not all- 
important ; the essential thing he believed to be his religion. 
" If I do not the works of the Father believe me not; but 
If I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works." " If 
any man will do His will he shall know of the doctrine 
whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." 
" The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worship- 
pers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth." The 
essential teaching of Jesus, through manifold variations of 
statement and application throughout his ministry, was, 
that human duty is comprehended in the two command- 
ments, " Love the Lord thy God " supremely, " and love 
thy neighbor as thyself." His largest discourse was on 
this text. The obligations this law lays upon life were in- 
troduced with these remarkable words : " Whosoever shall 
break one of these least commandments and shall teach 
men so, he shall be called the least in the Kingdom of 
Heaven ; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same 
shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven." 

The chief object of Jesus was to inspire the world with 
an enthusiasm for Piety and Philanthropy ; and, though 
he had profound convictions as to the importance of his 
own personality and of his way for the development of this 
holiness throughout mankind, it is yet clearly manifest, by 
direct statement and just inference, that he regarded piety 
and philanthropy to be the essential acquisitions. Jesus 
invariably subordinated his theology to his religion. 
Therefore, the religion of Jesus is the essential Christianity, 
and should be called Christianity. 

This definition of our religion is not that of the historic 
Church ; nor is it the one with which the earnest 
minds, who are beginning to profess themselves anti- 
Christian, are in conflict ; yet it seems to be the true 
definition. 

A more extended examination of the words of Jesus 



150 FROM CREED TO FAITH PART I 



than can be made within the limits of a newspaper article, 
serves but to confirm the statement of the Proposition with 
w T hich this writing is headed. The whole career of 
Jesus indicates its correctness. It has been the source 
of the real life of the Church. It is the faith towards 
which every Christian reform moves. It dreads no 
science ; it is in peril of no criticism. It can well claim 
universal empire, for its dominion would compel humanity 
to render God a loving service ; and it would realize the 
millennium which has been so long the dream of 
inspiration. 

Christianity is the Christian religion. It is not a creed 
of the brain, so much as a belief of the heart. It is not a 
thought, so much as a life. It is an enthusiasm for 
holiness and love ; it is the spirit of the life of Jesus of 
Nazareth. This being true, the hierarchies, ecclesiasti- 
cisms, and confessions of faith, which modern science has 
been forced to oppose, are not the effects of Christianity but 
of superstitious ignorance. 

C. — THE THIRD PROPOSITION. 

Comparative "Religion reveals Christianity to be the 
highest form of Religion, and thus commands for it the 
respect and allegiance of those who have the best 
"knowledge. 

In other words, a free examination of the re- 
ported words of the Founder of Christianity having 
formulated the definition of Christianity as the Christian 
Eeligion, a free comparison of Christianity with the other 
forms of Eeligion clothes it with the highest authority. 

We know that a fair treatment of this Proposition 
involves an extensive examination of the results of discover- 
ies which the opening up of the world, by international 
intercourse and the work of science, have brought to us. 
Through the one, access has been gained to the most 
isolated portions of the earth. Through the other, our 
prejudices have been so well destroyed that we are enabled 
to study the histories and present organizations of foreign 
nations with that candor and patience, without which the 
nations would better have remained in their seclusion. 



1869 



APOLOGY FOR CHRISTIANITY: III 



151 



Almost all we can do, therefore, in this limited space, is to 
assert the truth of our Proposition, urging it upon our 
readers in a way that may stimulate them to study for 
themselves the confirmations of our assertion which are 
made with the publication of every book of foreign travel, 
and by each new translation of the records which embody 
the religious histories and aspirations of humanity. 

We can now, intelligently, study the myriad incantations 
of Fetichism, the devotions of Polytheism, the adorations 
of Monotheism, and the speculations of Pantheism and 
Atheism. The legends of Obi-worship ; the savage 
thoughts of the South-Sea Islanders; the rude traditions of 
the Americans, are embodied in printed words. We have 
the Sagas, the rugged sacred poems of our own ancestors ; 
the hymns of the Hindoos and their million-worded 
Shastras; the Zenda vesta, rays from the Golden Star of 
of the Orient ; and the practical Classics of China. We can 
read the thoughts of the Egyptians and Ninevites from 
their pictured stones ; and we have the sanctified words of 
Moses and the Prophets side by side with those of the Al 
Koran. From Buddha to Hegel, and from Confucius to 
Comte, we have preserved the speculations of mankind on 
the problems of the Infinite, the Eternal, and Life. We 
have, within easy accesss, almost everything in which our 
fellow-creatures have sought satisfaction for their spiritual 
nature. 

In them all, we discover widely divergent intellectual 
conceptions of Deity and Nature ; but, in them all, there is 
manifest one religious spirit, shown in as different degrees 
of excellence as light has brightness. In them all, through 
the most diverse theologies, there is a recognition of the 
practice of obedience and worship of Deity, and of duty to be 
performed among His works, but so dimly in some and so 
uncertainly in others, that we feel they are only prophecies 
of some future Light of the World. This Light is revealed 
the moment Christianity is compared with them, This is 
shewn to be the Sun of Righteousness. It rises above 
them, lifted up by its royal worth over all. It proves to 
be itself the source of what is good in them, the. power 
which holds them, the impulse which bears them onward. 



152 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



It is enthusiasm for holiness and love — Beligion's most 
exalted form. 

No genuine Fetichism will yield the law of might to the 
law of right ; no real Brahminism will let go the aristocracy 
of caste for the democracy of universal brotherhood ; no true 
Buddhism will accept a millennial earth for the dead 
Nirvana ; no faithful Judaism will allow the God of Israel 
to be the God of Philistia. China is the Celestial Empire, 
no other country is ; Confucianism is philanthropy, it is 
never love of God ; Islam is submission, it is never love of 
God and man. But Christianity is piety towards God, and 
justice, equality, universal benevolence, charity among 
men ; it is, towards God and Man, whatever holiness and 
love, in their most comprehensive sense, demand. It sets 
the mind forever free ; it is not " Plato's brain. " Its 
civilization lies in the conquests of peace ; it is not " Caesar's 
hand." It evolves a truer harmony for the world than 
" Shakespeare's strain." It is the " Lord Christ's heart." 
Except under the authority of holiness and love,"it is perfect 
freedom. 

The Sixteenth Century was the time of its new birth. 
Borne was not it, nor of it. The life of Borne, persistent in 
the corruptions of Protestantism, is not it ; nor of it. An 
ecclesiastical handwriting of ordinances, and a creed pur- 
porting to be God's counsels concerning Man, — proclaiming 
the triune Being of God ; man's apostacy from holiness to 
total depravity ; man's salvation solely through the comple- 
tion of a vindictive act on Calvary, and by the election of the 
Holy Ghost ; and condemning to eternal torment all who 
will not thus believe, has no fellowship whatever with the 
Christ who said that "all the Law and the Prophets" hang 
on the two commandments, " Thou shalt love the Lord 
thy God," supremely, " and thy neighbor as thyself." 

The remaining assertions which I made under this " Pro- 
position" were for the most part but repetitions of what had 
already been claimed. They need not be reproduced here. 
My belief was sincere that a comparative study of religions 
shows that Christianity, as I had learned of it, " is the 



1870 THE WOEK OF A UNITARIAN CHURCH 153 



highest form of Religion " and " as such commands the 
respect and allegiance of mankind. " 

But, as a young man twenty five years old, and of not 
much more than a three years' experience in a free study 
of Christianity and of the other forms of Religion, evidently 
I was not prepared to make good my assertions through 
adequate illustrative comparisons. 

This essay should be remembered, therefore, merely as 
a suggestive exhibit of some of my experiences in the 
winning of the personal faith which I am describing. 
Mature study has strengthened my youthful conviction ; 
but " that is another story." 

II. 

The Work of Unitarian Christian Church : 
how it shall be done. 

My Inaugural Sermon to the Waltham parish, January 
2nd, 1870, elaborated the theme embodied in this 
heading. 

Compared with the sermon I preached when I began 
my ministry at Depere, Wisconsin, four years before, it 
hardly seems possible that the two deliverances could have 
come from one mind and heart. There is no difference 
between the earnestness of religious feeling pervading 
both, but the intellectual principles and methods of one 
are almost wholly diverse from those of the other. 

In order to make 'a graphic illustration of the purpose 
with which I had undertaken my ministry in this pastorate, 
— my first, professional engagement without a definite time 
limit, — I chose a highly interesting episode in the history 
of the Jews. 



154 



FKOM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



The parish thought the sermon worth publishing. 

INAUGURAL SERMON AT WALTHAM 

" When Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judea, Jerusalem was 
laid waste, and the people carried to Babylon in captivity. 
About fifty years after, under the reign of Cyrus, the 
Hebrews were permitted to return to their country to try 
to re-establish their nationality ; but it was not until 
Nehemiah, an officer of the court of Artaxerxes Longi- 
manus, became their governor, that their endeavors were 
successful. He consecrated his energies to his people ; and 
through him Jerusalem became again the pride of Judea. 
This success was achieved with great difficulty. Through- 
out his work, Nehemiah w T as resolutely opposed. When 
Sanballat, the Horonite, heard of his appointment, "it 
grieved him exceedingly that there was come a man to 
seek the welfare of the children of Israel." When he. 
heard of the rebuilding walls, " he was wroth, and took 
great indignation and mocked the Jews." He endeavored 
to make war on them, but was foiled. He attempted 
duplicity, but Nehemiah could not be diverted from his 
work. " Sanballat and Geshem sent unto me, saying, 
' Come, let us meet together in some one of the villages of 
the plain of Ono ! ' But they thought to do me mischief, 
and I sent messengers unto them, saying, ' I am doing a 
great work, so that I cannot come down ; why should the 
w T ork cease whilst I leave it and come down to you ? 1 
Yet they sent unto me four times after this sort, and I 
answered them after the same manner." 

As this is the first Sabbath of our union as pastor and 
church, I will add to our congratulations some thoughts 
about the purpose of this union, and the manner of its 
accomplishment. As a basis of what I have to say, I 
know of nothing better than this history of the unswerving 
devotion of Nehemiah to the work he undertook for the 
benefit of his fellow-men. To us, the successful building 
of our City of Peace is as important as the establishment 
of the old Jerusalem was to the Hebrews ; and until we 
become like Nehemiah, all our aspirations and endeavors 
for the building of this city will be as fruitless of joy and 
as fruitful of sorrow as the strugglings of the Israelites 




First Parish Church, Waltham, Massachusetts, 1869 



1870 



INAUGURAL SERMON AT WALTHAM 



155 



before the advent of their noble ruler. We must be able 
to say to every opposition, ' We are doing a great work," 
and cannot leave it. 

We are Doing a Great Work. 

We are a Church. We are conscious that man is the 
religious creature. We know that the Supreme Being has 
placed a witness of himself in humanity, and that, in all 
ages, under all conditions, man has endeavored to obey its 
promptings. Tradition brings to us, from a remote past, 
the evidence of this presence. It is shown in the rites of 
savageism, and in the imaginings and incantations of fetich- 
ism. History, dawning on the night of tradition, records 
the constant upward endeavor of the religious nature. It 
is revealed in the aspirations and terrors of polytheism, 
and in the piety and philanthropy which appeared when 
the shining summit was reached, and man stood in the 
light of an omnipotent and all-wise Unity. We have seen 
that, from the earliest and most infantile human con- 
sciousness, to the latest and most exalted Christianity, 
humanity has been guided by a witness of the Supreme 
Being. Each period of this development has culminated 
in a faith and an organized worship. This faith and 
worship is the Church. It is the shrine each generation 
makes for its most sacred thoughts and deeds. It is the 
testimony of each era to the indwelling of God in the soul 
It builds temples, asserts creeds, and performs duties. It 
is the deepest and holiest impress man makes on nature. 
We are, therefore, a Church. 

But, because our religious life has been shown its best 
manifestation in Jesus Christ, the prophet of Nazareth, 
we are a Christian Church. We believe, while God is 
present in humanity, and religion is a human thing, that 
Jesus Christ is the medium of God's best revelation of 
himself to us, and that Christianity is the highest form of 
religion. We confess ourselves to be the disciples of Jesus 
Christ, striving to realize his spirit, that we may be the 
approved children of God, and striving to bring our fellow- 
creatures into the same discipleship, that there may be 
established over the sin of the world the kingdom of holi- 



156 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



ness. We endeavor, through Christ, to love God supreme- 
ly as our Monarch and Father ; and mankind, the subjects 
of our Ruler and children of our Father, as ourselves. 
Every truth which reveals to us the Majesty and Father- 
hood of God, every inducement which shows to us the 
Brotherhood of Man, we profess to receive and attempt to 
realize. We are, therefore, a Christian Church. 

And we are a Unitarian Christian Church. While 
we believe that the religion of Jesus Christ is the highest 
form of religion, while we are convinced that it is the 
source of the piety and philanthropy which is the boast of 
the civilization of the past eighteen centuries, we in no 
measure accept the theology which has been associated 
with Christianity. The dogma of the Trinity, which had 
its origin in the mysticism that the Christian Church received 
in some of its early converts, and the many other articles 
of belief connected with it, are so antagonistic to our judg- 
ments of truth, that we have separated from them 
altogether. Our religious life, in common with that of the rest 
of Christendom, accepts Jesus Christ as its light and life, and 
in his spirit it worships the Father and loves mankind. 
Our intellectual life believes the Father to be the one God, 
the omnipotent, all-wise Creator, and mankind, which is 
endowed with reason, freedom, and responsibility, to be 
individually responsible for its beliefs. 

Being a Church, we are answering, as religious creat- 
ures, the voice of God within us ; as a Christian Church, 
we are endeavoring, as the disciples of Jesus Christ, to fill 
the earth with holiness and love ; as a Unitarian Christian 
Church, we are trying to lift off ignorance and superstition 
from the minds of our fellow-creatures, by teaching the 
gospel of God's omnipotent, all-wise Unity, and that of 
the other faiths our free thought has taught us. 

We are thus doing a great work; a work which de- 
mands our most earnest energies and devout consecration. 

Let us, therefore, endeavor to realize fully the purpose 
for which we have been united as pastor and church. 
Unitarian Christianity is the Jerusalem whose walls we 
are to rear as the walls of salvation, and whose gates we 
are to swing as the gates of praise ; and each of us should 



1870 



INAUGURAL SERMON AT WALTHAM 



157 



be like Nehemiah, as earnest, as unswerving in the deter- 
mination of our purpose, and as consecrated to our work. 

Let us believe, firmly, that God is the One all-powerful, 
all-w T ise Being Let us do every possible thing to make 
those whom we influence receive this faith. As advocates 
of this belief, we should insist that, because God is om- 
nipotent, he never was, nor can he ever be, defeated ; that 
human nature was not ruined against the divine will, and 
that the physical world is not under the divine curse. 
And we should insist that because God is all-wise, he has, 
in his wisdom , made all things, and will guide and dis- 
pose of all things by his wisdom forever. When Calvary 
is represented as a place where Divine anger was appeased by 
the shedding of Divine blood, when it is asserted that, on the 
cross, as a victim of God's justice, " God, the mighty 
Maker, died," let us be true to a better faith, and oppose 
the thought which imagines God to be so fond of dram- 
atic display as to occupy Himself with a tragedy so un- 
necessary to omnipotence, and so p rversive of every 
knowledge we have of wisdom, as that which is pictured 
in the Trinitarian description of the death of Christ. When 
salvation is preached as a deliverance from an eternal, 
physical hell, let us be true to a better faith, by denying 
the existence of any such hell, and proclaiming in its stead 
a salvation from sin and its natural penalties, and a re- 
demption found in an endless change from the image of the 
earthly into the image of t he heavenly. Heaven is not 
the celestial idleness the soul is thought by manv to receive 
at the death of the body, but is an eternal revealing of the 
spirit of God in us in holiness and truth, and an eternal 
manifestation of the life of God from us in beauty and love. 

& When Trinitarianism declares Jesus Christ to be " very 
God of very God," of the same essence with the Father, 
let us be true to a better faith, denying the declaration by 
science and intuition and the words we have direct from 
the lips of Jesus and his disciples. Jesus Christ is the 
Way, the Truth and the Life of the soul. x\s such, we 
should receive him faithfully ; but we should deny for him 
and with him always the glory which shines around 
Deity. And when a misguided reverence produces some- 



158 



FEOM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



thing so akin to fetichism as a belief in the words of a 
bookasthe only and infallible voice of God, let us be true still 
to a better faith. We hear the voice of God in the Bible ; 
but we are children in communion now with the Father. 
His word is within us. His truth shines through nature and 
providence. We cannot deny the facts of science and 
intuition. It has become impossible for us to believe that 
a book contains the only and infallible word of God. The 
supreme authority is truth ; truth in nature, truth in history, 
truth in the mind and truth in the soul ; truth from any- 
where and any time, from the feeblest consciousness about 
the Supreme Being, to the loftiest inspiration in the Bible. 

Thus, in a firm adherence to a belief in God's om- 
nipotent and all-wise Unity, every antagonism of the creed 
attached to the doctrine of the Trinity notwithstanding ; 
in a sacred allegiance to Jesus Christ ; and in an unswerv- 
ing declaration of the right of private judgment and the 
supremacy of truth at whatever cost, we shall be true 
champions of Unitarianism, and, thus far, loyal workmen 
on the walls of the world's City of Peace. 

Then let us yield our truth to the Law of Christ. 
As Unitarians, in a pure faith in one God, we should 
obtain truth from all directions and from everything. 
There should not be a discoverable thing relating to our 
spiritual life after which we should not fearlessly strive. 
Nothing is so low that we should not seek to raise, nothing 
so obscure that we should not try to bring to light. As 
Christians, we should transfer our possessions into the 
sphere of Love, and with our knowledge sanctified by love, 
our acts inspired by love, seek an intimate nearness to 
God, as our Father, and to Creation, as our Father's work. 

Among God's works we should see anew the divine 
presence. The day should mean more than brightness, the 
night show other wonders than its gloom and stars. The 
earth and air, the wondrous realm of vegetation, the in- 
finite range of animal existence, from the infusoria to the 
mammalia, should be the evidence of a universal Wisdom, 
whose mysteries would welcome our search, and whose 
rewards would crown us heirs of truth again and. again. 

In Humanity, we should see anew the same presence, 



1870 INAUGURAL SERMON AT WALTHAM 159 



and do all we can to make it full and clear. To do this we 
should obey perfectly the law of Christ. Whatever then 
be our relation to the church universal, to the government 
of our country and State, to society, to ourselves, as fami- 
lies and individuals, let us be devoted to our work as 
Christians. Let us do everything we can to bring in the 
reign of the law of Jesus Christ, thus destroying the power 
of sin, and building up the walls of the City of Peace. 

In the Church Universal, we should be that member 
whose faithfulness to Christ would continually help to re- 
move bigotry from religion, teaching it to "put on, 
above all, Charity which is the bond of perfectness." We 
should rebuke Borne with our love, and teach the Roman- 
ism remaining in the churches of the Reformation the 
gospel of peace and good-will, instead of that of war and 
hate. Here the church should see that " God is Love, and 
that those who dwell in love dwell in God and God in 
them." 

In our national and local governments, we should labor 
to extend individual freedom, limited by nothing save the 
common wealth. We should not " let politics alone," but 
should take the State in its corruption, official and personal, 
and strive to purify it. We should assert and reassert the 
civil equality of manhood, until the slave of the South be 
truly a freeman, and the coolie of the Pacific a citizen. 
We should recognize every attempt at a virtuous education 
of the children of our people. We should have no false 
ideas concerning the fancied rights of men to ruin their 
fellows, in body and soul, but should endeavor to control 
the liquor shop, the shambles where virtue is sold, and 
that veiled demon, the gambling hell. We should have 
no false idea of our right to say who shall govern others, 
but should believe that 14 all just governments derive their 
power from the consent of the governed," and advocate 
the possession of the ballot by every one who has intelli- 
gence sufficient to use it, with no regard to birthplace, 
color, or sex. In everything we should try to enlist our 
country and State on the side of the law of Christ. r 

In Society, we should endeavor to secure the reign of the 
Christian law. By Society, I mean all common human 



160 FROM CREED TO FAITH PART I 

life which is not under the immediate control of the civil 
rale, — commerce, manufacture and produce ; institutions 
for correction and charity ; schemes of labor and schedules 
of wages; marriage and domestic culture where they touch 
directly the interests of communities. We have as much 
to do with the selfishness of commerce, the frauds of manu- 
facture, the gambling in produce and exchange, as we 
have with the ordinances of the sanctuary We have as 
much to do with those who are diseased physically, the 
sick, the insane, the criminal, as those who are spiritually 
diseased. The burdens on the workman and workwoman 
are as important to us as the burden on the soul. When 
marriage is degraded, we should try to make it pure. We 
have a right to proclaim against the legalized adulteries and 
marital faithlessness now becoming so common. It is our 
duty to convict society of its fearful transgression of natural 
law, and the physical and mental punishment it will re- 
ceive, when it commits that terrible crime, the murder of 
unborn life. We should unweariedly warn society against 
every social vice, and entreat it to seek virtue. We should 
lead it to the holiness and prosperity which are always 
revealed when the life of Jesus Christ is felt and his com- 
mands "obeyed. 

Among ourselves, as families and individuals, it is 
specially important that there should be an exemplification 
of the law of Christ. We should learn those lessons of 
affection which would make our households abodes ot peace. 
We should receive such earnest impulse to love our fellow- 
creatures that they would see our good works, and be 
compelled to glorify our infinite Father. In this, our 
sanctuary, the beauty of holiness should be revealed and 
and sought. Here, we should be taught to do justly, to 
love mercy, and to walk humbly. Here, we should be 
be shown how to walk safely through temptation, to re- 
move duplicity from our acts, to be fair-handed and pure 
spoken. Here, we should rise freely towards the perfect 
truth, goodness and beauty. Here, our faith in God should 
be as serene as the sunlight, and our love for Christ and 
our hope for man as bright. Here, let the diseased, the 
fallen, the besotted, be led to the Great Physician and 



1S70 



INAUGURAL SERMON AT WALTHAM 



161 



restored to health. Here, let those who are mourning under 
the heaviness of affliction find a place for comfort. Let the 
bereaved learn that this is a holy place, revealing the Divine 
tenderness to those who seek it for consolation. Let this 
place being rest to all w T ho are weary, songs for sadness 
and robes of joy for the garments of heaviness. Let it be 
to us all a Bethel and an Emmaus wayside. We shall 
then be filled with the peace of God, and our hearts shall 
be aglow with the sweet counsel of Christ. Then shall the 
walls of the City of Peace rise higher and stronger every 
day. 

From what has been said, it is evident that, as a 
Unitarian Christian Church, we are doing a great work. 
Most earnestly do I hope that no temptation shall draw 
us away from it. Our success depends upon our energy 
and faithfulness. ' Though a host of Sanballats and 
Geshems should tempt us, let us be faithful to our Jeru- 
salem as Kehemiah was to his. 

The purpose of our union as pastor and church being 
now made clear, — 

HOW SHALL THE WOBK BE DONE ? 

There is of course but one answer, — by a faithful adher- 
ence to the work. Let us realize that this work is our 
work ; then give every energy to its accomplishment The 
work is not that of pastor alone, it is that of the church as 
much. This pulpit is not a lecture-desk, it is a source of 
spiritual energy, which should find free course in the 
pews. A sermon is worth anything only when it awakens 
a truer, better and more beautiful life in the hearers. A 
church is worth nothing unless it is, in a high sense, a co- 
operative association. Our church is a commnnity of free 
minds, loving pure truth, and doing all it can with its 
pastor, its youth and age, its strength and feebleness, to 
extend the sway of " Love to God and man " in the midst 
of the selfishness which so heavily burdens our race. Let 
us believe, then, that to the work of our church we are all 
called. As we strive to spread our faith through this com- 
munity, let us all try to be faithful witnesses to its truth. 
As we endeavor to remove evil and sorrow from our 



162 



FEOM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



fellow-creatures, let us all be earnest laborers in the 
divine effort. Receive me as one of yourselves only, shar- 
ing your joys and tried by your temptations. Let us all 
endeavour to be devoted workmen. When we are called 
to our work, we should be ready to answer. When we 
can uncloud some superstitious or ignorant mind, we should 
remember Jesus at the well in Samaria. When we are 
needed to lift up the desponding, heal disease, comfort the 
sorrowing help the tempted, we should be inspired by the love 
of the Master, and be ready to lay down somewhat of our 
life for others, as Christ laid down his for us. The parish 
union, the Sunday school, the charitable societies, the 
sociables the religious conferences, may invade our love 
of ease ; many other duties may meet us as we pro- 
gress in our work ; but we should remember always 
at such times the life of Jesus and his Calvary. We are 
doing a great work. As a Unitarian Christian church, we 
believe we are doing the work which will secure for mankind 
its best prosperity here and hereafter. Temptations are 
lying in wait on every side ; but we should remember the 
rebuilding walls of Jerusalem and the faithful Nehemiah 
who labored there. Let us say to all opposition, " We are 
doing a great work," and cannot leave it. Such devotion 
cannot fail of success. 

The old year has just passed away, and the new-born 
year is here. Its wondrous possibilities are before us. For 
the sake of our love to the Father, of our love for Christ, 
and the welfare of humanity, let us endeavour to make 
them ours. When, on the 31st day of next December, 
we see the death of 1870, may we have the joyous 
knowledge that this church has been faithful to its 
work, having blessed many of our fellow-creatures with 
a better knowledge of God and of Christ, and a truer love 
for each other and themselves. We shall thus do much 
to build and strengthen that City of Peace, to which, I 
believe, all nations will at last come, and acknowledge to 
be the City of God." 



1S70 SOUTH MIDDLESEX CONFERENCE 163 



III. 

South Middlesex Conference Address. 

A month later, Feb. 3rd, 1870, I delivered an address 
before the South Middlesex Conference in the old Harvard 
Church, Charlestown, near Boston. I used the occasion 
to make the positive and practical side of my Faith 
especially evident and intelligible. My theme was, 
" Christian Consecration the Source of the True Life of 
our Churches." 

By request, the address was published in the Christian 
Register. It was, in its own way, very like one of the 
fervent exhortations with which I had been familiarized 
in my Orthodox youth ; but the theological attitude had 
wholly changed. 

I repeat the concluding paragraphs to indicate the tone 
of this, my first, address to the brethren of the Ministry into 
which I had just been received, In their generosity they 
welcomed their counsellor and youthful mentor. 

" Let us, then, the members of this conference, pastors 
and delegates, do all we can to realize the consecration 
which is the source of the true life of our churches. If any 
temptations have led us astray from this great essential ; 
if any fear of man, any desire for the vain applause of 
crowds ; or the worse evil, any greed of the monied favor 
of those whom our consecration might offend, let us 
remember him who for the joy set before him endured 
even the cross. If we dread the consequences of a fearless 
advocacy of any truth intended to overthrow the power 
of error, let us remember him who endured Gethsemane 
and Pilate's Hall. If we are indifferent to our spiritual 
life, and have no impulse to lift souls into the presence 
which cheers all sorrow and strengthens every feebleness ; 
if we are indifferent to the inspirations of communion with 
the Infinite Father in meditation and prayer, let us 



164 



FKOM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



remember the Christ who spent nights on the mountain 
in devotion to the Being from whom he proceeded, only as 
a preparation for the labors of the days which he gave to 
the sufferers and sinners who sought him. Let us, 
therefore, devote ourselves, strength, time and money, to a 
perfect consecration. If we succceed, so far, at least, 
Unitarian Christianity shall "Arise and shine, ,, with the 
glory of the Lord risen upon it. 

My essay is concluded. I have attempted no argument 
to prove the truth of our theme. That we admit. I have 
endeavored only to assert and re-assert our subject, that it 
may become very prominent in our thoughts. That it has 
been practically ignored by much of our preaching and 
practice I think none fairly question. For this both 
preachers and people are at fault. 

Now the question has met us fairly. Christian con- 
secration is the source of the true life of our churches. 
" Whosoever he be, that forsaketh not all that he hath, 
he cannot be my disciple." Are we ready to accept the 
test of the Master ? 

IV. 

The Possibility of Spiritual Science. 

Intimately related to this Conference Address and like 
appeals for genuine, devoted consecration to our rational 
Christian faith, were the results of the studies I had con- 
tinued to pursue in the domain of religious speculation. 
Profoundly emotional though I was, my emotion would 
have soon failed without the stimulus of a clear apprehen- 
sion of the deeper things of faith : — for instance, the 
Consciousness of God ; also, possession of the best possible 
theory of the relation of God and the Universe. 

One question had been of almost continuous recurrence 
since I had encountered at Morrison the " Doctrine of the 
Unknowable " in Herbert Spencer's awakening " First 
Principles, namely : " " Is there any datum which we may 



1S71 



POSSIBILITY OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 



165 



confidently claim to be knowledge in what we name the 
domain of spirit?" or, in other words, "Is Spiritual 
Science Possible ? 99 

Believing, at length, that such knowledge is not only 
possible but is really in our possession, I ventured to make 
my convictions known in a rather elaborate lecture which 
I read to the Waltham people in the winter of 1871. 
I read the lecture to other congregations also, in exchange 
with several neighboring fellow ministers who had pre- 
pared lectures on kindred topics 

This lecture, I reproduce, as published in " The Eeligious 
Magazine" m 1872. It is the best embodiment I had 
of the primal intellectual elements of my Faith in the days 
soon after it had been won. 

" Is Spiritual Science possible? Four hundred years ago 
it would have been almost impossible to ask of European 
thought this question ; yet, had our inquiry been made, 
but one answer would have been elicited, — an unqualified 
affirmative. In the thought of Europe to-day the question 
has not only been asked, but, in some directions, it is 
considered that the final answer has already been given, 
— a negative as unqualified as would have been the 
Medieval affirmative. The great movement in which the 
intellectual attitude of the present has become, in large 
part, opposite that of the past is one of the most important 
events in human history. The discovery of the truth or 
error of the denial of our question is one of the most prom- 
inent objects demanding critical investigation. 

It is the purpose of this essay to try to show that the 
denial of our question is erroneous. That I may do this, 
it shall be my endeavor only to indicate some facts which 
are an insurmountable obstacle to the logic by which 
spiritual science is declared to be an impossibility. Pre- 
vious to this, however, it may aid to a better understand- 
ing of the position of the essay to make a brief review of 
the history of the general movement to which 1 have 



166 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



alluded, so far as it has resulted in a negative answer to 
our inquiry. 

Towards the close of the Middle Ages, the Eoman 
Church held the thought of Europe in abject bondage. 
The word of the Church was the ultimate law. The work 
of thought was simply to conform reason to ecclesiastical 
dogma. Probably there was never so complete a servitude 
of mind as in Scholastic Europe. But, in the presence of 
this bondage, some fugitive Greeks, in Italy, gave an 
impulse to the study of the original writings of the ancients. 
The lately invented printing press was made to propagate 
the results of their work, and Europe began to be inspired 
with a new life. " Gradually a band of men, classically 
educated, opposed itself to the stereotyped, uncritical, and 
tasteless manner in which the sciences had been culti- 
vated ; new ideas came into circulation ; and the free, 
universal, thinking spirit of antiquity was born afresh." 

With this event, known as the Eevival of Letters, the 
Middle Ages closed, and the modern enlightenment open- 
ed. Thought became conscious of its degradation. It 
rose against the assumptions of the Church. It rebelled 
against Scholasticism, and claimed the right to put itself 
above dogma. It turned away from its dreams to the 
world of realities, and, what was of the chief importance, 
began to give an honor to nature and experience, as free 
and enthusiastic as its association with Kome's arbitrary 
intellectualisms had been servile and dull. 

At length, as the conception of Nature was enlarged by 
the discovery of the American continent and the w r ay by 
sea to the East Indies ; and as it was magnified still more 
by Galileo's declaration of the revolution of the earth on 
its axis, by Kepler's discovery of the laws of planetary 
motion, and by the Copernican theory of the universe, the 
assertion of thought of the right of self-possession, and its 
direction to the facts of the external world and experience, 
were embodied, and found expression, in tw T o great minds, 
the English Lord Bacon and the French Descartes. From 
Bacon and Descartes proceeded, in clearly marked direc- 
tions, the development of the liberated thought. It is 
sufficient for the present purpose to say of these directions, 



1871 POSSIBILITY OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 167 

that, while both Bacon and Descartes were actuated by 
the one spirit which had set Europe free, while they both 
threw off the incubus of the irrational dictum of the 
founder of Scholasticism, " I believe that I may under- 
stand/' and accepted, as their inspiration, the assertion of 
self-conscious, independent thought, " I will understand 
that I may believe," the one directed his work " to an 
observing and an experimenting investigation of nature," 
and the other aimed at discovering, in the human con- 
sciousness, the principles of fundamental knowledge. The 
result has been, that, under the influence of the Baconian 
method, the immense body of physical knowledge and 
experiment known as Natural Sciences has matured ; 
and, guided by the method of Descartes, the great body 
of metaphysical knowledge and speculation known specially 
as Philosophy. 

As it is not within the province of this essay to give any 
account of the development and influence of metaphysical 
science, I only make this allusion to the different direc- 
tions the freed thought took, under the guidance of the 
two master minds, and will now confine attention to the 
effects of the progress of the method of which Lord Bacon 
was the originator and guide. 

In Lord Bacon was embodied, to a pre-eminent degree, 
what is callen the " modern spirit." He gave expression 
to the longing w 7 hich actuated the enancipated mind of 
Europe, even more fully than his worthy co-laborer. 
Perhaps thought never felt poverty so truly as at the close 
of the Middle Ages. Beleased from bondage, and aroused 
from the lethargy of servitude, it became conscious of a great 
debasement and immeasurable w r ant. What it had been 
compelled to call Science it discovered to be almost empty 
of knowledge. The degrading influence of ecclesiastical 
dogmatism had made its work almost barren of genuine 
gain. So that, once freed from ecclesiasticism and scholastic 
dreams, it rapidly became hostile to both, and invested the 
neglected facts of nature and experience with an exalted 
honor. As Lord Bacon made nature and experience the 
sole spheres of knowledge, and as he compelled the mind 
to approach these lordly realms with the humility of the 



168 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



spirit of the little child, he gave the most satisfactory 
expression to the want of the liberated thought. Dr. 
Schwegler says, " Bacon directed anew the observation 
and reflection of his contemporaries to actual fact, proxi- 
mately to nature; he raised experience, which hitherto 
had been only a matter of chance, into a separate and 
independent object of thought, and he awoke a general 
consciousness of its indispensable necessity. To have 
established the principles of empirical science, a thinking 
exploration of nature, this is his merit." It is to Lord 
Bacon, therefore, that we trace the beginning of the 
wonderful growth of the natural sciences during the past 
two hundred years, and it is to the influence of his method, 
sustained and increased by the necessities for physical 
discovery and invention which the opening up of the 
world, by international commerce and the settlement of 
America, have caused, that we must attribute their present do- 
minant interest and importance. Meeting a double demand, 
the want of the freed thought of Europe for real knowledge, 
and the necessities of an extending civilization, the effects 
of the Baconian method have prominent place to-day in 
every department of European and American life. 

But, while this fact is woithy of a cordial approval, in 
some respects, it is open to criticism. While every one 
must admit that the allegiance of thought to the method 
of Lord Bacon has given humanity a farther advance, and 
promoted a greater welfare in some directions than ever 
before, yet it is evident, to many who have studied the his- 
tory of the past two centuries, that the Baconian induction 
has, so far, had a tendency to cause thought to neglect other 
directions where mankind can make a still father advance and 
gain a still better welfare. Undoubtedly the animating idea 
of Lord Bacon, that it is the chief aim of thought to minister 
to the physical well-being of man, was conceived in a noble 
spirit, and, certainly, it was a natural consequence of the 
intellectual reaction against ecclesiastical usurpation, to which 
the Baconian method gave the best expression ; but, un- 
doubtedly, it is just as true that there is another well-being 
of man than the physical, and certainly this as well as the 
former must be served. The errors of the Middle Ages were 



1S71 POSSIBILITY OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 169 

not wholly unmixed errors ; and the rebellion of thought 
against .Scholasticism was not against wholly unreal dog- 
mas. Beneath the errors of the Church there were eternal 
truths, and the dreams of scholastics were in large part of 
imperishable realities. The self-consciousness which ob- 
serves nature and measures experience is as worthy and real 
an object of study as the nature which ministers to phys- 
ical need and pleasure. And, because the emancipated 
thought sought the truths of the material world almost 
wholly, and because Lord Bacon did not give the inner 
consciousness the honor he bestowed upon the outer nature, 
the heroic effort of the popular mind and the noble impulse 
of its chief were at fault, and to these must be traced, not 
only two centuries of grand achievement in natural science 
and mechanical art, but, also, two centuries of an increas- 
ing struggle of the human soul against a tendency to merge 
the observing self in the nature it observes, or to deny to 
self any knowledge that should be other then merely phe- 
nomenal ; in other words, the prevalence, in thought, of 
the Baconian method has resulted, not only in a magnifi- 
cent array of the physical sciences and the useful arts, but 
also in the dogmatisms [of Materialism or of an Exclusive 
Phenomenalism. Consider briefly some of the results at 
which thought, under the guidance of the Baconian me- 
thod, has arrived. 

The extreme culmination of this method, opposed, we 
know, to the thought of Lord Bacon personally, yet a 
legitimate outcome of the exclusive use of his induction, is 
Materialism. How it was reached it is needless here to 
show at length. It will be sufficient, for the present pur- 
pose, to say that in one direction the work of the English 
philosopher was taken up by Locke, whose logic was 
accepted by Condilhc, in France, and, through him, 
carried forward until the French " Encyclopedia, " and 
Baron d'Holbach's " System of Nature," were published ; 
when the extreme word of a wholly natural philosophy 
was spoken, and a coarse Materialism affronted thought. 
As expressed in France, at the close of the last century, it 
professed to have discovered that there is but one substance 
in existence, and that that substance is active matter. It 



170 FEOM CEEED TO FAITH PAET I 



asseited that nature alone is the field of research. It 
declared that man is simply a perishable mass of organiza- 
tion ; that his " mind is but the development of his sen- 
sations," and that his highest life consists in serving self- 
interest, and ministering to self -gratification. It also 
declared that God is but "the diseased fiction of an unen- 
lightened and enthusiastic age." In England, also, 
Materialism has had bold advocates, and at present it is, 
perhaps, most fully expressed by some German thinkers, 
whose conclusions, while not so grossly antagonistic to 
spiritual truth as those of their French associates, are yet 
agreed with them in this, that the investigations of nature 
and experience discover the universe to be but the result of 
the activity of one material substance. 

The more moderate and the more prevalent result of the 
method of Lord Bacon is what may be called an Exclusive 
Phenomenalism. I give this name to those intellectual 
movements which confine themselves to the examination 
of phenomena in a professed endeavor to discover only 
their mutual relations and the laws by which such 
phenomena exist. Unlike materialism, exclusive phenome- 
nalism does not assume to be a theory of the Universe, nor 
does it actually deny the Universe to be the work of a 
super-material Being. The claim it makes is, simply, that 
there can be no knowledge except of the changing surfaces 
of things ; that phenomena do not discover to any extent 
the nature of the Beality which manifests them. 

Among the prominent expressions of Exclusive Pheno- 
menalism are the philosophy of Mr. Herbert Spencer, and 
a certain indefinite, unsystematized, philosophy (if it may 
be so named), especially represented by no one mind, but 
held by some religious thinkers who are students of the 
results of the Baconian method. The philosophy of Mr. 
Spencer declares that phenomena reveal the existence of 
Power behind them, but that the nature of this Power is 
utterly inscrutable. The quasi philosophy of which I have 
spoken grants to the truths of physical science the certainty 
which is derived from experiment. It calls this " Science." 
To the truths of Beligion it allows only the probability 
arising from an un demonstrable assurance. This it calls 



1S7L POSSIBILITY OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 171 

" faith." These philosophies, the one endorsed by most 
of the leading scientists of England and our own country, 
the other prevalent in some directions among theologians, 
are, from their intimate association with modern life, special 
objects for criticism. 

I have now made a brief review of the history of that 
change in the attitude of thought which has placed it in 
large measure, to-day, opposite the the position it occupied, 
as a whole, four hundred years ago, and have indicated 
some of the results of the development of the Baconian in- 
duction. In these results, as said before, the tendency has 
been to merge the observing self in the nature it observes, 
or to deny to self any knowledge except that which is 
merely phenomenal ; in other words, the Baconian prin- 
ciples have thus far tended to push thought either into 
Materialism or an Exclusive Phenomenalism. 

As an evidence of how wide-spread these tendencies of 
the method of Lord Bacon are, I call attention, by 
way of parenthesis, to the present popular estimate of the 
word "science," which, literally, means "knowledge" of 
any kind, and which, technically, means, " knowledge 
systematized." This word, by general consent, seems to 
be given over to the realm of physical knowledge, as if no 
other knowledge were possible. The present literature 
almost invariably refers to physical science without the 
qualifying adjective. The question asked at the opening 
of this essay is thus denied by a popular suffrage which 
elects physical knowledge as the only " Science." Mr. 
James Martineau makes these comments on the writings 
of Mr. Baden Powell, who, as much as any, may be re- 
garded as a representative of the latter of the expressions 
of Exclusive Phenomenalism to which I referred; "Mr. 
Powell intended, we are sure, to be not less loyal to his 
Christian Theism than he was to his Inductive philosophy. 
When, however, after volumes of proof that the universe 
discloses nothing but immutable law and material develop- 
ment, so orderly, indeed, as to bespeak Thought, but so 
inexorable as to be silent of Character, after treating the 
supernatural as intrinsically incognizable, and the moral 
and spiritual as entirely out of relation to the rational faculty, 



172 



FEOM CREED TO FAITH 



PAET I 



he briefly relegates us to " faith " for oar grounds of re- 
ligious conviction, we certainly feel that the door is rather 
rudely slammed in the face of our inquiry, and that we 
are turned out of the select society of the philosophers who 
know, to take our place among the plebs who believe. ,, 

But to show that there is no satisfactory reason for our 
exclusion from any knowledge except of material things, 
or that which is merely phenomenal, I propose now to in- 
dicate some facts which neither Materialism, nor an Ex- 
clusive Phenomenalism, can explain. If the existence of 
such facts can be proven, then, for the ease of distinction, 
naming them by the old word " spiritual," as a practical 
antithesis of " physical," the denial of the question of this 
essay is itself denied, and spiritual science is possible. 

Preparatory to a consideration of this part of the subject, 
let the reader endeavor, as far as possible, to free his mind 
from the prejudices which the present importance of the 
physical sciences may have aroused in it. Let him re- 
member that the present dominant influence of the study 
of nature is the result, first, of the reaction of thought from 
its bondage in the Middle Ages, and, second, of the neces- 
sity pressing upon it to satisfy the physical needs of man- 
kind produced by the opening up of the world. Let no 
one forget, that, though four hundred years ago thought 
was confined to the inner consciousness, its work was 
almost useless, simply because it had no freedom of action, 
and because the outer nature, by which to aid in verifying 
or correcting its conclusions, was ignored. Let the 
wonderful material progress of the past two centuries 
be estimated at its full measure ; let it be remem- 
bered that the skies and the earth have been yielding 
to man great knowledge and wealth ; that two material 
agents alone, steam and electricity, have been making him 
physically more prosperous than almost all his previous 
possessions ; that under the growth of the natural sciences 
the world is becoming a new earth ; that the future 
promises even a more wonderful ministry to human pros- 
perity than the past, — but let it be also remembered, that 
the marvelous revelations of nature have tended to 
fascinate thought ; that the unvarying confirmations of 



1S71 POSSIBILITY OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 173 

the perfect movements of physical law, the increasing 
discoveries of the relativity of knowledge, the contempla- 
tion of the treasures revealed by the telescope, microscope, 
retort, scalpel, and like instruments, have so absorbed 
thought that oftentimes man has seemed to be utterly forget- 
ful that he is the observing consciousness of an unconscious 
ivorld. So, taking the independent position characteristic 
of the modern spirit, and free as possible from the bias 
which the results of the 'Baconian induction has made in 
almost every department of the life of to-day, let the 
reader give the question of this essay his consideration. 

The first position we take is one to w 7 hich I have 
already alluded, the old one which has always been 
asserted by the logic of common sense ; namely, that every 
human being is conscious of two facts : first, that himself 
exists, and, second, that he is surrounded by something 
which is not himself. It cannot be disputed, that, as 
soon as we know anything, we not only know that there 
is a great world about us, but we know also that we are 
existences other than the surrounding world. Our first 
knowledge is always the double knowledge of self and 
not-self ; of two unquestionable realities. This being true, 
it cannot be disputed that both these facts claim attention. 
Perpetually in the presence of our experience of the outer 
nature the inner consciousness appears, so that neither can 
be justly studied to the exclusion of the other. It becomes 
necessary, then, to discover what truth is presented by 
both consciousness and experience. Between self and the 
external world are the senses. Between the consciousness 
of self and self there is no barrier. We know that we exist 
simply because we know it. Our knowledge of the 
nature of self is limited, but its limitations are the effects 
of the experience of the external world upon us, and our 
ability to separate between the facts of experience and the 
truths of consciousness. Self-knowledge, when gained, is 
thus a more certain knowledge than knowledge of not-self. 
It is an immediate knowledge, while knowledge of the 
outer world comes through the media of the senses. 

When, therefore, we study ourselves for knowledge of 
ourselves, and observe that we constantly perform the act 



174 



FKOM CKEED TO FAITH 



PAET I 



called thinking, we know that we think simply because 
we think. We are conscious that self is a thinking being. 
That fact, first, I offer as an insurmountable obstacle in 
the way both of the Materialist and what I have termed 
the Exclusive Phenomenalist. 

Certainly Materialism, as expressed in France and as it is 
now understood, claims that there is but one substance in 
the universe, and that that substance is active matter. If 
this were true, thinking then would be either an effect or 
a form of material energy, and one of two alternatives 
would have to be accepted, — either that thought is produc- 
ed by that which does no thinking, or that material energy 
must in essence be all that thought is. But, as it is a 
truism that out of an absolute non-existence an absolute 
some-existence cannot come, so out of only active matter, 
according to every accepted definition of matter, purposing 
intelligence could not arise. If, on the other hand, 
thought be potential in matter, matter is no more matter, 
and Materialism has committed logical self -destruction. 
Materialism to make its claim valid must prove that 
matter, possessing only purposeless force, has produced 
the universe as it is, with its manifold forms of life, 
vegetable and animal and human, with human society, 
state, and church. A complete materialism, however, has 
never been able to establish itself for any length of time. 
Its worst foes are those of its own household. Its own 
logic is the most deadly weapon raised against it. 

The presence of thought in man is also an insurmount- 
able obstacle to an Exclusive Phenomenalism. If self thinks 
self does not appear to think, it thinks ; — self is, therefore, 
at least, a thinking being. We know directly, we are 
conscious that this fact is true of ourselves. Thought 
may not indicate all that we are, but, as far as it indicates 
anything, it reveals the nature of the reality we call self. 
This truth rests upon an unquestionable basis. 'As think- 
ing realities, we are, in essence, immaterial beings. If 
this declaration is confronted with evidence of the intimate 
relations of brain and thought ; if it be shown that race, 
climate, food, and the like, produce varying physical 
organisms and mental individualities; yet, when the whole 



1871 POSSIBILITY OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 



175 



exhibit is made, the immaterial thought within these 
peculiarities remains as the evidence of the immaterial self. 

But, not attempting to give the truth of man's imma- 
terial nature a more extended proof here, observe a farther 
manifestation self makes to consciousness, as evidenced in 
our own persons, and as testified to in man's history. It 
is the conviction that over self and all else there is Supreme 
Existence. It does not suffice to say, in explanation of 
this conviction, that it is an inference from our consciousness 
of the existence of self and our knowledge of the external 
world. Unless it be native in consciousness, no finite 
existence or limited education could place it there. It is the 
conviction of the Infinite and the x^bsolute, — a conviction 
which, from its quality, it would be impossible by any 
amount of finite proof to produce. It is simply present in 
consciousness, and compels recognition. This fact is 
another insurmountable obstacle in the way both of 
materialism and an Exclusive Phenomenalism. 

Materialism cannot account for it, for it emphasizes the 
infinite superiority of this Existence to self. And, as we 
know that self as a thinking being is necessarily an 
immaterial being, it follows unavoidably that what su- 
premely transcends self must also be at least Immaterial 
Being. Nor can an Exclusive Phenomenalism confront 
this conviction better than Materialism. It is true that 
Mr. Herbert Spencer,* w 7 hom I have selected as the most 
prominent representative oi an exclusively phenomenal 
philosophy, says, " Its positive existence [that of the 
Absolute] is a necessary datum of consciousness. So long 
as consciousness continues, we cannot for an instant rid it 
of this datum ; and thus the belief which this datum 
constitutes has a higher w 7 arrant than any other whatever." 
In saying this, however, Mr. Spencer does not occupy his 
position as an exclusive phenomenalism The Absolute 
can. be no phenomenon. It is the Reality. Mr. Spencer 
so names it ; and it does not matter whether we know it 
in w 7 hat he calls " the strict sense of knowing, or not." 



* First Principles, p. 98. I refer the reader to Mr. Spencer's chapter 
on the Kelativity of Knowledge, First Principles, p. 87, for his 
argument in fall concerning the positive consciousness of the Absolute. 



176 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



We are conscious of it, and consciousness, he admits, is 
our source of greatest certainty. 

But, what especially concerns us, is the question, 
" Whether any knowledge of the nature of this Eeality is 
possible ?" This question introduces Mr. Spencer as the 
representative of an Exclusive Phenomenalism. As an 
a priori thinker, he posits the Reality of the universe as 
the most certain of existences ; but as an a posteriori 
thinker, he asserts that this " Eeality is utterly inscrutable 
in nature. " 

This, then, is the answer which one of the most prominent 
and most highly cultured English philosophers of the 
present day makes to our most momentous inquiry. 
What wonder, then, that we feel a sense of loneliness and 
desolation as, out of respect to the writer, we at first 
contemplate the probability of his reply ! For, if the 
Eeality of which we are by nature conscious, and which 
Mr. Spencer so nobly asserts, be utterly inscrutable, we can 
not know, even in the least part, the truths that the deepest 
human longings have from time unrecorded most wished 
to know. We move through a wholly phantasmal exist- 
ence. The ultimate Reality becomes either an eternal 
deception in the phenomena it produces, or a captive impris- 
oned forever in its works. True, Mr. Huxley,* who is in 
accord with Mr. Spencer, speaks of " worship at the altar 
of the Unknown and Unknowable," and Mr. Drawing also 
in sympathy with Mr. Spencer, defines religion as ' ' love, 
complete submission to an exalted and mysterious superior, 
a strong sense of dependence, fear, reverence, gratitude, 
hope for the future/' etc., — yet how can we w r orship at 
the altar of an utter Unknown and Unknowable ? And, if 
Exclusive Phenomenalism be true, how can we accept Mr. 
Darwin's definition of religion ? As Mr. Mivart t says, it 
is " ' love ' for that of which we can by no possibility know 
anything whatever, and to which we may as reasonably 
attribute hideousness and all vileness as beauty and good- 
ness ! ' Dependence ' on that of which treachery and 



* Lay Sermons, p. 16. 

t Descent of Man, Vol. I., p. 68. 

t Contemporary Keview, January, 1872, p. 187, 



1871 POSSIBILITY OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 177 

mendacity may be as much characteristics as are faithful- 
ness and truth ! ' Reverence ' for an entity, whose 
qualities, if any, may resemble as much all we despise as 
all we esteem, and which, for all we know, may be 
indebted to our faculties for any recognition of its 
existence at all ! ' Gratitude ' to that which we have not 
the faintest season to suppose ever willingly did anything 
for us or ever will ! ' Hope ' in w 7 hat we have no right 
whatever to believe may not, with equal justice, be a 
legitimate cause for despair as pitiless, inexorable, and 
unfeeling, if capable of any sort of inteligence whatever ! 

" This no exaggeration. Every word here put down is 
strictly accurate ; for, if that which underlies all things is 
to us the Unknowable, then there can be no reason to 
predicate of it any one character rather than its opposite." 

But Mr. Spencer, ever in his argument for the un- 
knowableness of the Ultimate Reality, show T s his special 
position to be untenable. That this Reality should be 
utterly inscrutable, no quality or attribute whatever should 
be predicated of it ; yet when Mr. Spencer declares that 
" we cannot think at all about the impressions the external 
world makes upon us without thinking of them as caused/' 
and in another place adds, " we are obliged to regard every 
phenomenon as a manifestation of some Power by w T hicb 
we are acted upon,'' he becomes inconsistent with his most 
prominent assertion, in then concluding that effects pro- 
ceed from an Ultimate Cause, or that force in nature is an 
evidence of an Absolute Power behind nature. To be 
consistent, he has no right to qualify the Supreme Ex- 
istence in any way. The fact of Supreme Existence is 
posited by the consciousness. The attribute of cause, or 
power, must be added to it from the study of phenomena. 
In this respect, at least, phenomena have been accepted 
by Mr. Spencer as an interpretation of the Noumenon, 
and, so far, at least, Exclusive Phenomenalism is self-denied. 
But, in utter opposition to this self-denial, in the face of 
his declaration that the Supreme Reality is the Ultimate, 
Omnipotent, and Omnipresent Cause, Mr. Spencer con- 
tinually asserts that the Supreme Reality is utterly inscru- 
table. Now I insist that by the same process w 7 ith which 



378 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



the professedly exclusive phenomenalist has confirmed the 
consciousness of the Supreme Existence, and qualified it as 
Omnipresent Power, we can learn more and more of the 
nature of this Existence. 

As illustrations of my meaning ; studying the pheno- 
mena crowding upon attention, there is nothing more clearly 
seen than that, so far as we know, countless inorganic 
forms exist subject to an exact order, changing conformably 
to invariable laws. These forms, which in part compose 
w T hat has been called the material universe, and whose 
changes are directed by what are called the laws of matter, 
have made special claim to the work of thought, through 
the modern necessities for physical discovery and mechanic- 
al invention. They are the source of the vast body of 
the classification and generalization of phenomena by 
which mind has felt justified in writing a history of nature's 
past, and prophesying its future. Geology, astronomy, 
chemistry, and the like, have discovered the mode of the 
formation of planets and stars ; the laws of their motions ; 
the qualities and relations of the material elements. They 
also tell us towards what the directing agent in nature is 
leading it. They say they have traced the stars from vapory 
nebulae, through flaming spirals, into incandescent suns 
and worlds. They show us how rocks, crystals, and 
earths came into being. They catalogue the elements that 
are aflame in the light of the stars, and describe, in the 
circling of a storm on the earth, the paths of the winds 
and the places of special peril. Electricity, magnetism, 
gravitation, heat, and light have revealed the fact that 
they act in obedience to perfect order. But if, as Mr. 
Spencer says, " we are obliged to regard every phenome- 
non as the manifestation of some power and if, as is self- 
evident, that which is manifested must proceed out of that 
which manifests, certainly a Power which manifests a 
perfect order must itself be, at least, orderly. In the 
material universe then, where we find perfect law and order 
the Supreme Power must act at least by law and order. 
But law implies at least what we call thought, and, so wa 
reason, that a source of law must be at lenst what we call 
intelligent. How any one can insist that the Power of 



1S71 



POSSIBILITY OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 



179 



the universe is utterly inscrutable, when all else he says is 
based upon the truth that this Power works in material 
forms by perfect law, is inexplicable, unless, dazzled 
by a favorite theorv, he is blinded to the over-shining 

light. _ 

Rising above the realm of inorganic forms into the world 
of organisms, the truth which appears to be so sufficiently 
proved, on a lower plane, that it might rest there, becomes 
still clearer. The organic world, which we discover rises by 
ascending degrees of excellence from the lowest vegetal or- 
ganism to the most complete animate physical system, shows 
to a pre-eminent degree the possession of intelligence by 
the Supreme Power : and in this fact we discover even 
more than intelligence. The favorite doctrine of physical 
science, the Theory of Evolution, would not exist were it 
not animated by the truth that the process of organisms is a 
gradual development of life from the incomplete to 
the more complete, from the imperfect towards the perfect. 
The word which more than any other seems to inspire the 
study of physical phenomena is " progress;" and life, 
which Mr; Spencer defines as the " continuous adjustment 
of internal relations to external relations," is, upon his own 
showing, constantly rising higher towards the attainment 
of a perfect equilibrium. As no one will question that the 
process of organisms is the work of the Supreme Reality, 
the work is certainly what in our vocabulary we call wise. 
The Absolute Reality, therefore, must at least possess 
what we call wisdom. The illustrations of this truth are 
numberless. All the discoveries of plant structure and 
growth ; the sciences of the multitudinous forms of mollusk, 
fish, insect, bird, reptile, and mammal life, and the like, 
rise one above the other, a gloriously laid living temple, 
built by a Master Architect. Intelligence and wisdom are 
visible everywhere. 

But it is not the purpose of this essay to do more than 
indicate this truth. My object is only to show that the 
same process which discovers evidence of power in the 
Existence behind nature must, to be logically consistent, 
recognize other attributes of this Existence. By Mr. 
Spencer's own reasoning, we may claim to know already 



180 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



that there is over the universe a Supreme, Eeal, Omni- 
potent, Omnipresent, Intelligent, and Wise Cause. 

But other than the outer nature are ourselves. We are 
facts as real as any of the external world. We are think- 
ing beings, as much the work of the Supreme Power, and 
as worthy objects of our own study, as any part of the array 
of material forms and of the vital evolution surrounding us. 
We are conscious of the Supreme Existence. We have 
seen evidences in the physical creation that this Existence 
is what we would call an Intelligent and Wise Power. 
Now, when we rise from the world of matter and inferior 
life into that of ourselves, we perceive only clearer evidences 
of the truths already discovered. History shows, that, 
from the lowest barbarisms, man has been striving after 
and continually approaching the enlightenment with 
which this century is crowning him. Degree by degree he 
has been raised from one plane of excellence to a higher. 
And since we, the glory of whose existence is intelligence 
and purpose, are as much the creatures of the Supreme 
Being as the crystal or plant, surely the Creator must at 
least be our peer. 

But, what is of chief moment, there are evidences of more 
than even intelligence and wisdom in us. When we exam- 
ine consciousness, we find a something we do not discover in 
the outer nature. We call it the Moral Sense. This is a fact 
which cannot with justice be set aside. It is an unavoidable 
phenomenon which self manifests in consciousness, even 
more certain than the sensations which reach us from the 
external world. It is the instinct of right and wrong, the 
native conviction of personal responsibility. It is this that 
makes human history upon one page so sorrow T ful, sinful, 
and tragic, and on another so joyous, pure, and sublime. 
The material organization of man is the most refined and 
complex of organisms. But back of all anatomy there is 
that for which anatomical processes can give no reasons, 
and which physical law cannot control. Human history 
is oftentimes heroic where the physical instincts would have 
made it disgraceful. We hear of prophets battling for 
truth when truth leads them to dishonor and poverty. 
We behold seers looking forward to the universal reign of 



1871 



POSSIBILITY OF SPIBITUAL SCIENCE 



181 



purity and love. We see hosts of martyrs, for all degrees 
of noble aims, going in triumph to the stake and cross, 
believing in an honor and joy made perfect through shame 
and suffering. 

And, more than these, the repentance of the sinful, 
the remorse and despair of the guilty, as the anti- 
theses of the aspirations and peace of the holy, defy 
the efforts of the operator's microscope and knife. The 
moral sense declares that over all our life there must be an 
Absolute Morality. Thus, in the presence of our own 
hearts and the history of human kind, as much facts as 
any truths of nature and natural history, we cannot help 
declaring that in the Supreme Poicer there is at least a 
good as pure as our best ; a real that at least equals our 
ideal ; a truth, beauty, and a love, tohich must at least be 
as noble as the truth, beauty, and love ivhich inspire us. 
Over us, who are thinking persons endowed with a moral 
consciousness, having sublime intuitions and ideals, there 
must be at least a Supreme Power who perfectly realizes 
our loftiest conception or imagining. If we have an in- 
stinctive faith there must be the possibility of satisfying it. 
If we long for perfection, for an absolute holiness and love, 
there must be as great a Holy and Loving Eeality as our 
prayers seek. If we feel in ourselves the instinct of an 
imperishable life, and if in all ages all races of mankind 
declare immortality, though widely separated and unknown 
to each other, certainly there is Imperishable Life some- 
where, and ice may reasonably hope that mans personal 
consciousness of it assures him of personal consciousness 
in it. 

Having now passed rapidly through some of the truths 
of both consciousness and experience, and having indicated 
facts which cannot be accounted for by a materialistic, or 
exclusively phenomenal, hypothesis, I will rest my essay, 
adding only, that I think it is evident, from an impartial 
study of ourselves and the world around us, that we can 
know that which is immaterial and real as well as that 
which is material and phenomenal. 

Spiritual science, using the word "spiritual" as be- 
fore indicated, is, therefore, possible. Religion then is 



182 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



possibly more than mere " faith." Our aspirations after 
Deity are not futile endeavors to know an utter Un- 
knowable. We may rest with confidence upon our 
intuitions. We can be loyal to conscience as the witness 
of a real law of Eight. We can trust in goodness 
as a fact proceeding from an eternal Good. We can 
obey truth as the word of an absolutely True. sA 
human beings seeking a Divine Being, we do not seek na 
utter Mystery, but at least a Person who is real as we are. 
Physical science is useful, and is an incalculable aid to the 
increase of material comfort and wealth. As the instru- 
ment to accomplish these things, it should be carefully 
nurtured ; but when it is permitted to overrule human life, 
when we allow it to put unconscious Matter on the throne 
of the universe, or to crown there an utter Unknowable, 
we are faithless to ourselves, and it is our duty to cherish 
our nobler personality, giving only to Him whose right it is 
to reign, and to those revelations which meet our irrepres- 
sible longings and endorse our immortal hopes, our reverent 
homage and allegiance. It should never be forgotten that 
above all physical truth and use, worthy as are our occu- 
pations in them, our true dignity as human creatures 
consists in looking "at the spiritual and immortal side of 
our being, and rising evermore above time and sense to 
that which transcends time and sense and remains where 
these leave us forever.' ' 



v. 

The Eelation of Unitarianism to the 
Older Christian Sects. 

I add to this account of that period, so important to 
me personally, one other " Memorial " of the days of 
spiritual emancipation. The Anniversary meetings com- 
mittee of the American Unitarian Association invited me 
to speak at the Association's "Forty Seventh Anniversary," 
April 30th, 1872. The theme proposed for my speech was 
as given above. 



1872 UNITARIANISM AND THE OLDER SECTS 183 



The address, reported stenographically, was as follows ; — 

Mr. President and Fellow-Unitarians, — It has been 
suggested to me to say something to you about the 
relation of Unitarianism to the older Christian sects. I 
willingly accept the suggestion ; the subject is one in 
which I have a special interest. Having been identified 
with those sects through the greater part of my life, and 
being now associated with Unitarianism, I am naturally 
desirous that the relation of the latter to the former should 
be well understood. So, if the words of a comparatively 
new comer among you can be of any help to a better 
understanding of those relations I will gladly say them. 

First, as a help to our subject, let us try to understand 
what we mean by "Unitarianism," and by the "older sects." 
I do not know that I can define Unitarianism satisfactorily 
to all who call themselves Unitarians, but I can tell you 
how the older sects define it ; with what conceptions of it 
I entered your fellowship, and what has made me proud 
to be associated with you. 

Among the older sects, — and by the older sects I mean 
those which are known as Orthodox, or Evangelical,— 
the prominent thought associated with Unitarianism is of a 
body which has determined to submit to no other authority 
in religious matters than that of the reason. As confirm- 
ing this, I noticed in last week's Begister that Dr. 
Guthrie, the eminent Scotch preacher, says of Prof. 
Maurice, — " reared in the school of Socinianism, he 
never got rid of the leaven of that school, in the place 
which it assigns to reason as the test and standard of 
divine truth." This is considered to be your great error, 
for it is a fundamental belief in Orthodoxy that " original 
sin," as one of the leaders of modern Calvinism says, " has 
made every man totally alienated from God, and conse- 
quently every act vitiated by his condition as a rebel." 
Thus, first and emphatically, to the older sects you are 
rationalists. 

In the next place, the Evangelical sects consider that 
Unitarianism is a belief in the right of each mind to make 
its own creed. To them you are not only rationalists, but 
you are individualists also, refusing to combine and say 



184 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PABT I 



what your rationalism believes. This is considered to be 
your next great error. For it is another fundamental 
belief of Orthodoxy that, as God has made a perfect revela- 
tion in the Bible, it is man's duty to give a systematic ex- 
pression of the truth of that revelation, and yield it united 
allegiance. 

In the third place, the most prominent doctrines an- 
nounced by representive Unitarians are held to be fatal 
errors. You may claim upon the evidences of reason to 
be Christians ; but if you hold any of the representative doc- 
trines of Unitarianism, the Orthodox cannot allow you your 
claim. You may rationally claim to be religious, but religious 
you are not esteemed to be, except in the widest judgment 
of charity. For in the Orthodox faith the foundation of 
the whole superstructure is belief in "man's ruined condition 
by nature," and in the "divine salvation " wrought out by 
the "propitiating death" of Christ. Fcr this reason Unitar- 
ianism is considered to be fatally in error, and is regarded 
with mingled pity and enmity, — pity, because its advocates 
are in such a perilous condition, and enmity, because they 
adopt a method so sinful in its results. I believe I am not 
making any misstatement about the estimate that the 
prominent Orthodox minds place upon Unitarianism. Of 
course, there are exceptions to w T hat I am saying : there are 
gross bigots who are not as just as my statement would 
make them, and there are liberals who see some truth in 
the position our denomination is thought to have assumed. 
I do not refer to these, but to those minds with whom the 
name and character of the older sects are most often asso- 
ciated. But whether what I am saying of those sects be 
- true or not, it expresses exactly the conception of Unitari- 
anism that I received from my Orthodox teachers. 

Seven years ago I was a Calvinist, and seldom heard of 
the existence of Unitarianism ; but when the name hap- 
pened to be called to my attention, I always thought of its 
advocates as independent rationalists. This evening I am 
a speaker at an anniversary of the American Unitarian 
Association. In seven years a great change has occurred 
in my position. But while I will not try to tell you now 
how my mind struggled out of the old bondage into this new 



1872 UNITARIANISM AND THE OLDER SECTS 185 



freedom, yet there are some facts which I take the liberty 
of mentioning as illustrating our subject, and as being sub- 
stantially true of every Orthodox mind obtaining intellectual 
freedom. By a combination of many influences, I gradually 
began to doubt what I had been taught of the utter 
untrustworthiness of reason. I slowly commenced to admit 
questions about doctrines against which my intuitions had 
been protesting, but which protest I had attributed not to 
error in the doctrines, but to the perversity of my heart. 
And this last fact I may mention as being the mightiest 
power which sustains the theological position of Orthodoxy. 
For, taught from childhood that doubt is born of sin, and 
not of the instinct for truth, what Orthodox mind dare 
harbor doubt? But to return. My questionings cost me 
more mental anguish than I can tell ; and time only served 
to increase the trouble. How I longed for rest no other can 
know. 

At length, with a growing conception of the dignity of 
human nature ; with an increasing readiness to examine 
the reputed infallible guide to faith and practice ; with a 
new idea of the meaning of the omnipotence of God, and 
a conviction of the impossibility of a sacrifice like that 
attributed to Christ, — I determined to claim perfect intel- 
lectual freedom, and to find, if possible, a better truth than 
that in which I had been educated. I will not recount 
what followed ; but that determination I consider to be the 
most important act of my theological life ; for, however 
erroneous the conclusions may be that I have drawn from 
my investigations, the method by which I have w T orked I 
consider to be the true one ; and it is exactly opposite that 
which governed me while identified w 7 ith the older sects. 

After being dispossessed of ministerial standing, though 
deprived of the name, I still considered myself to be a 
Christian ; and I wished to do the work to w T hich I had 
given myself; because I did not then believe, did not see 
reason, no^ have I since seen reason for believing, that 
Christianity and perfect intellectual liberty are antagonistic. 
Of course, the impulse which sent me into the Christian 
ministry, the desire to aid in the salvation of souls from 
hell by preaching the atoning sacrifice of Christ was gone ; 



186 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



bat the inspiration to be a spiritual help to my fellow- 
beings still remained, and I desired to continue the work 
my Presbytery had commanded me not to do. But where 
to do it was the important question. 

While trying to answer that question, kind words came 
to me from representative Unitarians. In substance they 
were, " If you have any message by which you wish to 
make your fellow-beings better and happier, Unitarianism 
offers you free pulpits. We are Christian, but Christian 
without definition ; and we limit in no way the right of 
free inquiry. " This invitation instantly put me into 
sympathy with you, and, for five years now, I have 
found that the expressions of those whom I have met, — of 
most of those whom I have met who bear the Unitarian 
name — seem to confirm all the conceptions I had of Unit- 
arianism. And that apparent confirmation is the source of 
the pride I have in being now associated with you. 

But what are the older sects? They are Christian 
churches, gathered round noble religious truths, and in- 
spired by a genuine piety, and a self-sacrificing love 
for man. Against the faith, purity, and love which 
characterize them no one can say any thing. They nur- 
ture as beautiful a spiritual life as can be found on earth. 
The most that Unitarianism can do in its religious relations 
to Orthodoxy is to give evidence in its freedom of as devout 
and fervent a spirituality; with the added confidence and joy 
which a more hopeful faith should inspire. But, as time 
limits what I have to say about the relations of Unitari- 
anism to the older sects to their intellectual characteristics, 
I will not refer to this further. ■ 

Theologically, the older sects are the servants of fixed, 
external authority ; they believe that God has made 
a perfect revelation in the Bible ; and that in " the 
Scheme of Salvation" emphasized by the Protestant 
Beformation is the only avenue by which ruined 
man can escape his doom. They deny the right of in- 
quiry outside of the Bible ; and further, they deny any 
interpretation of the Bible other than that which conforms 
to what they authorize. Such are the older sects, accord- 
ing to their standards. From their standards we must 



1872 UNITARIANISM AND THE OLDER SECTS 187 



make our iudgment of them, not from the words of any 
of the few free minds with whom we are sometimes 
tempted to identify Orthodoxy. 

What, then, is the relation between Unitarianism and 
the older sects? On the one hand is Unitarianism, a 
professedly Christian body, claiming perfect intellectual 
freedom, and declaring as the final test of religious truth 
the authority of the reason. On the other hand are the 
Evangelical sects, Christian, too, but limiting intellectual 
freedom to their special interpretation of the infallible 
Bible, The relation of the former to the latter, as I judge 
it, is twofold : First, it is a refuge for every mind seeking 
release from ecclesiastical bondage, that truth may be sought 
with no limitation other than the liberty with which the 
truth shall make ' free ; and second, in the name of 
the very charity we claim, Unitarianism is the antagonist of 
the principles by which the older sects are separated from it. 

Contrary to what my brother, who has just spoken, 
says ; on the front we present to Orthodoxy we should 
proclaim above all else that " it is our creed to have 
no creed." Liberty is not yet as perilous to Unitarian- 
ism as some have declared it to be. Knowing Or- 
thodoxy as I do, the age is not liberalizing too 
fast. Liberty is the one word mightier than all the 
others that called Unitarianism into being. The time 
has not yet come for it to become secondary. Unitarianism 
is Christian ; and Christian I believe free inquiry will cause 
it and all religious thought to become more and more ; but 
one of the greatest Christian virtues of Unitarianism is that, 
above all, it is intellectually free. Woe to it in the day, 
should it ever come, when this bright crescent shall fade 
from its front ! Unitarianism is not in sympathy with the 
older sects : it is their antagonist. Between the two there 
is a chasm which cannot be bridged until Orthodoxy shall 
spring the arches after the Unitarian pattern. Mean- 
while, it is your mission to give a cordial welcome to every 
mind struggling, through the abyss, for liberty ; to meet 
him, as Christ would, with no limit to your fellowship, if 
he be earnest and pure in purpose, desiring to know only 
what is true ; and to do only what is good. 



188 



FROM CBEED TO FAITH 



PART I 



The very charity we claim is a reason why we should 
endeavor to destroy the dist ; nguishing principles of Ortho- 
doxy. It is our duty to prove that no external authority 
is competent to fix the limit within which religious thought 
shall act. 4 shrewd man of the State lately said to me, 
" It is your mission as an organization to liberalize the 
sects of this country, that in the end all may become free. 
Your sectarian work is to destroy sects." 

And further, though at the risk of wandering from 
my subject, I will say that, for the sake of our re- 
lation to the older sects, Unitarianism should be very 
cautious in what it does concerniug what calls 
itself more advanced thought, and professes to occupy 
a more free position than the one Unitarianism seems 
willing to assume. On every side our principles should 
be preserved inviolate. Is it not possible, friends, that 
some error has been committed, somewhere at some 
time, that Unitarianism has not been able to keep within 
itself some of the earnest minds who now think of us as 
we think of the older sects ? This is a question I cannot 
enter upon here, but if it suggest any wrong in our denom- 
inational record ; in the acts of this Association ; in the 
declarations of that body which claims to be our represent- 
ative Conference ; then for the sake of our far past ; for the 
sake of truth ; for Christ's sake, let the wrong be made 
right. 

To all earnest Unitarians let one say, who has come to 
you from the older sects, who knows their estimate of you, 
who knows of many he left behind him longing for a 
Christian body, in which, with its vital religion, there 
shall be perfect mental freedom, — " Beware of every act 
which may identify Unitarianism in letter or in spirit with 
the principles of the sects from which your fathers strug- 
gled so nobly to be free." Should Unitarianism become 
true to its understood principles, it has a grand future. As 
an alliance of free minds, it can make itself the agent for 
setting Christianity in America free ; and as Christianity 
becomes free, it can afford room in which the liberated 
thought can perfect itself, while at the same time it can 
continue to cherish the religious life, — the Christian life, 



1872 



UNITARIANISM AND THE OLDER SECTS 189 



to which all intellectual action must ever be subordinate, 
with as excellent a culture as the best older sect has 
achieved. 

I prophesy that, like the world now springing into life, 
with each leaf and flower maturing after its own nature, each 
showing forth its own measure of the universal life, and 
all combining to make up the wide expanse of grace and 
fragrance now surrounding us, so can Unitarianism become 
a true Church of God, where each soul can grow to ma- 
turity after its own nature, inspired by its own knowledge 
and experience of the universal Fatherhood of God and of 
the universal Brotherhood of Man : all making the true 
Kingdom of Heaven upon earth w T hich seers in all ages have 
beheld in visions, but which Jesus of Nazareth realized in 
his life and teachings. 



190 



CHAPTER SIXTH 

CONSUMMATE EXPBESSION OF MY FAITH 

Nearly a half century has now passed since the days in 
which I realized fully that I had been emancipated from 
the " Creed of Calvin," and, with freed mind and heart, had 
gained a reasonable and happy personal Faith in God, in 
Christ, and in Man. 

As I have already said, the experiences of after years 
in no way essentially changed the Faith which I had won 
in early manhood. But, inevitably, that Faith has been 
intimately involved in the whole of my much varied and 
eventful personal career ; and it has been given expression 
in many different forms. It has naturally, too, passed 
through processes of expansion, and of development. 

Looking now, over writings which were devoted to themes 
specifically religious, I have chosen a few, prepared in the 
after years, in which I think my Faith received consummate 
expression. I shall reproduce two of these articles in this 
chapter. Some other writings which, though fundamentally 
religious, are especially products of formal philosophical 
speculation, I shall repeat in a subsequent chapter. 

a. Besignation from the Waltham Pulpit, — The Wal- 
tham pastorate was served with zeal and with much mental 
serenity. I did my work as well as I could, making 
continuously a wider acquaintance with books and men. 

Of specific moment in connection with my mental 
development w T as membership in the Chestnut Street Club 



1873 RESIGNATION FHOM WALTHAM PULPIT 191 



of Boston, meeting at the bouse of Bev. John T. 
Sargent. Also, I joined the Free Religious Association, and 
was much interested in its efforts on behalf of full liberty 
in theological thinking. I had the privilege, too, of friendship 
with several prominent members of these fine fellowships ; 
friendships ever since memorable as factors in my intel- 
lectual growth. Among those who were most active in 
these organizations devoted to the larger liberty, and whom, 
under the limitations of my youth, I learned to know 
most closely, were E. W. Emerson, A. B. Alcott, O. B. 
Frothingham, T. W- Higginson, John Weiss, D. A. 
Wasson, Samuel Longfellow, Dr. C. A. Bartol and Francis 
Tiffany. And I was honored in gaining very pleasant 
acquaintanceships with Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Mrs. 
Edna D. Cheney, Mrs. Caroline H. Dall and Miss Louisa 
M. Alcott. My religious conservatism and Christian dis- 
cipleship in no way seriously separated me from a thoroughly 
free fellowship with the more "radical" of the two 
" wings " with which the Unitarian fellowship then seemed 
to be finding its evolution. 

So far as I had, at the time, any intention concerning 
my professional future, I regarded myself as indefinitely the 
minister oftheWaltham "First Parish." I was well 
aware of my own serious intellectual limitations, especially in 
the deeper study of religious problems which some of my 
more favored acquaintances had achieved. But I was not 
restless because of the fact. 

Unexpectedly, however, after about three years of this 
pleasant ministry, a parishioner generously gave me an 
opportunity to go to Europe and spend some time in the 
pursuit of favorite studies. The offer was so attractive in 
every way that I willingly accepted it and resigned my 



192 



FEOM CREED TO FAITH 



PABT I 



pastorate ; though I sincerely regretted closing, thereby, 
official relations with the Waltham people. 

b. In Europe : — Heidelberg, Leipzig, and Dresden. 
Early in 1873, 1 went to Germany where, for the next two 
years and longer, I attended lectures on Philosophy and 
Theology at the universities of Heidelberg and Leipzig. 
In 1874, I represented the American Unitarian Association 
at the meetings of the Protestantenverein, in Wiesbaden. 
For some months in the same year, I had special readings 
in Philosophy with a friend in Dresden, Dr. Paul Hohl- 
feld, a devoted disciple and interpreter of Krause's specula- 
tive system, known, in the modern Philosophy of Keligion, 
as Panentheism. 

The effect of these years on my Faith was not to change 
it, except by further informing it, clarifying it, making it 
more reasonable ; and by disclosing more clearly what I had 
already apprehended as its immovable foundation. My 
readings carried me well into the records of the great 
historic systems of Philosophy ; the history of the origins 
and development of Christianity ; and, somewhat, into the 
new science of " Comparative Keligion." 

c. The Philosophy of Karl Christian Friedrich 
Krause.— During my last year in Germany, I became ac- 
cidentally acquainted with the writings of a much neglected, 
or rather but little known, philosopher of the early part of 
the Nineteenth Century, Karl Christian Friedrich Krause. 

In conversation with a German acquaintance I had told 
him of my absorbing interest in a clarified Theism. He 
answered that I " ought by all means " to study the "Sub- 
jective Analytic, and Objective Synthetic Philosophy 99 of 
Krause, — the clearest exponent, he believed, of the God Idea 
among modern thinkers. I gave months, as I have said, 



1873-75 



THE PANENTHEISM OF KKAUSE 



193 



to a study of the works of this writer. Both his method 
and the content of his thinking were especially congenial 
to me. My own speculative predilections were well in 
harmony with his assumptions. I could not follow him 
throughout over the way he went, but I willingly went 
far with him ; receiving much support for my Faith from 
what he had " excogitated, " or thought out. 

To Krause, neither the word Theism, nor Pantheism, 
expresses the Principle which satisfies fully man's ultimate 
apprehension, when thinking about Universal Being. He 
devised in the word Panentheism w T hat he considered 
would be a far more satisfying symbol,— all thoughts and 
things considered. This term has, in recent years, received 
the endorsement of several leaders in religious speculation ; 
and it is coming into use by many who, perhaps, never 
heard of its originator and great interpreter. 

Budolph Eucken, a thinker of wide influence to day, 
writing of the Benaissance, adopts, I observe, this term, as 
though it had become a part of the common vocabulary of 
Philosophy. 

Eucken says, u We find here lofty natures and select 
groups of thinkers developing a nobler and deeper religion, 
a religion for religion's sake. Here endeavor soars above 
all visible and finite forms : the idea arises of a universal 
religion. The spontaneous joy in life which belonged to 
the Benaissance is glorified into a religion, which includes 
both Theism and Pantheism, — Panentheism, — exalting 
man to life unending by union with the Godhead." And he 
remarks of a later time, " There is much closer kinship to 
Panentheism, the creed of the noblest minds of the Be- 
naissance, than to the distinctively Christian view which 
these men incline to look upon as a mere refuge for the 
weak and sickly. Beligion for them is rather an invisible 
Presence which attends their work than a specific form of 
spiritual experience." 



194 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



rAHT I 



Then, in the wonderful selection of reflections made 
from the writings of that rare-souled Frenchman of Switz- 
erland, Henri Frederic Amiel, — his " Journal Intime," — 
I have read ; — 

" The minds which have reached the doctrine of 
Immanence are incomprehensible to the fanatics of 
transcendence. They will never understand, — these last, 
— that the Panentheism of Krause is ten times more 
religious than their dogmatic supernaturalism." 

I never became so fully a disciple that I could properly 
be named a follower of Krause, but I gladly acknowledge 
a great obligation to him because of the clearer apprehen- 
sion, through him, of the philosophic grounding of my 
Faith. 

I have always been gratified to know that such eminent 
historians of Philosophy as Erdmann and Ueberweg have 
generously recognized the importance of Krause's thinking. 
Froebel, I know, drew his philosophic inspiration chiefly 
from Krause's thought. Erdmann went so far as to claim 
that Krause's " profound teachings " are " important for 
the present age, not so much because of the number of his 
professed followers, as because of the number of those who, 
without naming him, plunder him/' 

Why Krause did not receive a larger recognition among 
his contemporaries ? is a question not very difficult of 
answer, when it is remembered, first, that politically he was 
a persona non grata in official Germany. He was a believer 
in the sanctity and dignity of the individual man ; he was 
of most earnest conviction in developing his wonderful social 
beliefs and aspirations under an autocratic government. 
His " Ideal of Humanity/' — Urbilcl der Menscliheit — is a 
work to be classed with the most beautiful dreams of the 



1873-75 KRAUSB'S " URBILD DER MENSCHHEIT " 195 



world's visionaries, in its proclamation of the way to, and 
its prophecies of, ultimate human blessedness. Krause 
was for a time accused, though most wrongfully, of 
collusion w 7 ith the social revolutionaries of France. 

Then, Krause, in advancing his speculations, felt that to 
make them wholly clear of misunderstanding and of 
confusion with other terms which bore fixed historic 
meanings, he must invent wholly "pure " German names. 
His " purism," thereupon, became so pure that his 
language was more difficult to understand even on the 
part of his own countrymen than among foreign readers. 

Noting this fact, Erdmann remarks that it has become 
" an irony of fate that Krause's writings found more 
acceptance in Germany after his thoughts had been given 
expression in foreign speech, and, thus, — deprived of their 
pure German garb, — had been made known at home." 

Whatever the reasons, however, it became fact at the 
outset, and, until recently at least, has remained the fact, 
that the largest discipleship of Krause's thought has been 
among other than German peoples, especially among 
Belgians, French, Spaniards and Italians. In these 
countries there have been some prominent scholars who 
have named Krause "the greatest among German think- 
ers." 

Amiel, for instance, was a profound admirer of this 
illuminated, spiritual German. The following passage 
from his "Journal Intime " did much, long ago, to 
strengthen and to confirm my awakened longing to know 
Amiel as yet another "friend in the life of the spirit " : — 

"This evening a feeling of emptiness took possession of me, 
and the solemn ideas of duty, the future, solitude, pressed 
themselves upon me. I gave myself to meditation. Kead part 
of Krause's book, Urbild I der Menschheit, which answered 



196 



FKOM CHEED TO FAITH 



PART I 



marvellously to my thought and need. This philosopher 
has always a beneficient effect upon me : his sweet 
religious serenity gains upon me and invades me. He 
inspires me with a sense of peace and infinity." 

I make this tribute, gratefully, to Krause's memory for 
the reason that his influence was, in many w 7 ays, deeply 
instructive to me in the maturing of my Faith : and it has 
always been, since then, an inspiration. I do not wish, 
however, to place upon Krause responsibility for any of 
the definite forms in which I have set forth the lines of argu- 
ment I have used for later expositions of my Faith. I am 
indebted to him for much, especially for the term Panen- 
theism, and for the methods of the thinking with w 7 hich he 
illustrated the " Idea " expressed by it. Were I writing of 
theology, technically, I should gladly use this expressive 
term " Panentheism " to signify my Theism. 

d. An Exposition of my Faith in God. Some years 
after this interesting stay in Germany, when I was 
minister of All Souls Church in Washington, L.C., I 
prepared with much enthusiasm, a lecture entitled "Faith 
in God" (using the word ff faith " as belief rather than 
trust). 

Later, in 1879, when I was invited to address a 
Conference of Unitarian and other Liberal Christians" 
meeting in Philadephia, Pennsylvania, I took the sub- 
stance of the argument of this lecture, and, associating with 
it man's questionings concerning the " Problem of Evil," 
offered my conclusions to the Conference. At the time, 
the later address embodied my most mature convictions 
on this greatest of all themes possible for man in his 
thinking concerning " God " and " Divine Providence." 
I repeat both papers here that they may show in what 



1877 WHAT IS f< FAITH IN GOD?" 197 

way the development of my Faith had been carried for- 
ward. They constitute a religious rather than a speculative 
statement of my belief. Farther on, I shall return to the 
theme by the way of distinctively philosophic speculation, 

I. 

Faith in God. 

In every adequate definition of Religion there is, for its 
foundation, some form of faith, or rather belief, in God. 
This faith may be as imperfect, as rudimentary, as that of 
the savage who thinks himself surrounded by multitudes 
of mysterious living powers which help or hurt him ; or it 
may be as refined and mature as that of the modern 
philosopher who declares, — " That amid the mysteries 
which become the more mysterious the more they are 
thought about, there will remain the one absolute certainty 
that man is ever in the presence of an infinite and eternal 
Energy from which all things proceed." The affirmations 
of Religion begin naturally, therefore, with the specific 
" faith " in God which lies at their foundation or source. 

If I were required to indicate in a sentence the kind of 
faith upon which our religion is based, I should say,— It is 
the faith which is necessitated by the clearest knowledge 
and the most approved theory of the Universe, together 
with the demands of the most highly developed Moral 
Sense now existent among mankind. 

An unprejudiced review of human history shows that, 
however originally a " revelation " that which is called the 
God-consciousness may have been, the definite form such 
consciousness has taken has always been dependent upon 
the current notion of the World and its phenomena, 
together with man's own moral needs. The history of 
Theology is the history of specific effects of man's growing 
interpretation of his environment and his ethical aspirations. 

Much is written at the present day of the " Conflict of 
Religion and Science." There fer, however, no real conflict 
between the two. There never has been a real conflict 
between them, What seems at times a struggle between 



198 



FROM CREEP TO FAITH 



PART I 



them is always but the strife arising between religious 
creeds and institutions, which have been developed out of 
a former view of the World and its forces, and the teach- 
ings of more mature Philosophy and Science. The 
institutions of Eeligion are necessarily conservative. It is 
they which conflict with advancing Science. It is they 
which perish in the struggle, not the religious consciousness 
itself. It is, in fact, the enlightened religious consciousness 
which determines their destruction. This consciousness is 
permanent, and it invariably follows as progressing know- 
ledge leads. 

To illustrate ; When the Humanity of the far ancient past 
was, socially, segregated into many small groups, living in 
almost complete isolation from one another; shut in to 
their narrow domains by rivers, mountain-ranges, deserts 
and seas ; when all they knew of the world was derived 
from their experiences of the areas immediately around 
their caves and their hunting grounds, and of the vaulted 
sky overhead ; when perpetuated tradition was of the 
briefest and most infantile kind ; they had, so far as we 
can discover, no such thought of superior and mysterious 
Being as could now be named " God." The most probable 
guess, we can at present make, indicates that, at the best, 
primitive Man peopled the invisible air with a multitude of 
beings very like himself. To the primitive Man, there was 
no more a Universe, or one Power governing it, than there 
is this now to a little child. He had no thought of Crea- 
tion and of a Creator ; of a realm of Nature and of a Ruler 
of nature, — of a World and of a God. He lived from day to 
day simply serving his daily wants. Events which he or 
his fellows did not cause and could not control, he either 
did not try to explain, or he referred them to beings in 
every respect like himself, except perhaps that they were 
invisible, and often more powerful. 

So far as he attempted to interpret the mysterious 
realm, he projected into it his own thought and feel- 
ing. His fellow 7 s were many ; the happenings of the 
world were many ; consequently the unseen beings and 
their deeds were many. The spirits of things and of 
the air were neither better nor worse than himself 



1877 



WHAT IS " FAITH IS GOD ? " 



199 



and his fellow men. Some did harm, others did good, 
just like human beings. He loved and hated the my- 
sterious spirits, as they were kind or cruel. Sometimes 
he thanked them and asked favors of them : often, too, he 
attempted to circumvent them, indeed, to defeat them. 
The hidden beings, however, had the advantage over him 
of seeing him, while he could not see them. Consequently, 
at length, because of the invisibility and the often unex- 
pected exercise of mysterious powers, men became more 
and more humbled before them, and thus tended towards 
that mental mood which later became Worship. 

But not to dwell too much on the early thinking and feel- 
ing of Mankind, let us understand here that in that age of 
child-like humanity, there was a childish interpretation of 
all things and events. 

It was, probably, a long way from the original Childhood 
of Humanity to the time when man's mind had so far 
developed, that he thought of a World and of a God over 
it. It was necessary, before that age could be reached that 
an enormous expeiience ehould be passed through : that 
tribes of large inclusion should be formed ; and that migra- 
tions over mountains^ across seas and deserts should take 
place. In particular, it was necessary, that Tradition 
should preserve with some distinctness and coherence the 
happenings of the past. Society must first become organ- 
ized. The idea of law and of social order must be, more or 
less, developed. 

As men's knowledge of their surroundings was thus 
developed, a rudimentary notion of a World came into 
being. As the force of events gathered tribes into societies, 
into leagues, and produced embryo nations, so Man's 
thought of the spirit-realm required order, gradation and 
law in that realm. As there were traditions of great chiefs 
in the past, who had died and become denizens of the spirit 
world, and had become spirit-chiefs there, these chiefs were 
gradually transformed in thought from rulers of ghosts 
into really supernatural beings who had lived from time 
immemorial. At length they were metamorphosed into 
" gods " whose birth had never taken place in this world. 

Then, far along in the course of human progress,— so 



200 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PAET I 



tradition now in our possession makes clear, — the distance 
separating memory and the events it had preserved, be- 
came so wide ; also so extensive had become the knowledge 
of the earth and of the over-arching skies, that, among 
some portions of Mankind, the thought was conceived, that 
there is realty a great World over w 7 hich there is one all- 
seeing and directing ■" God." Such an era w 7 as reached, for 
example, when the Hebrews passed beyond their ancient 
belief that Canaan alone was Yah weh's land and that 
neighboring other lands w r ere ruled by other " Gods," and, 
instead, proclaimed to the world that " the earth is Yah- 
weh's and the fulness thereof." 

This larger belief has indicated^ substantially, the reli- 
gious devotion of the leading peoples of Mankind 
through most of what is called their historic periods. In 
other words, Human History, for the most part, shows 
that multitudes of Mankind have long been living under 
the belief, that there is over the world either only one God, 
or a Monarch ruling as Chief among the gods. That is 
to say, a practical Monotheism, of one or another degree of 
excellence, has been for ages dominant in Religion. 

In setting forth the specific faith in God upon which 
our religion is based, we, therefore, naturally say, " We 
believe in one God, and in one God only." 

But what form has our " Faith in One God " received? I 
cannot answer this question satisfactorily without a con- 
tinuing reference to Man's past. 

Historic Monotheism has been concurrent with Man's 
maturing view of the World and his changing ethical long- 
ings and ideals. 

Recall the Theology prevalent at the time when Man 
had gained a view of the World so much larger than that 
of prehistoric man, that he regarded Nature as the realm 
of one God whose dwelling place w r as the heavens. As 
human society w 7 as subordinated to its kings, so, ran man's 
thought, were all things subject to God. God had his 
foes also, as kings had foes. God sent forth edicts as did 
kings* The chief concern of God was for the welfare of 
his Kingdom. God was a " Man of War," as was also a 
king, God fought the battles of " chosen peoples," as did a 



1S77 



WHAT IS " FAITH IN GOD?" 



201 



sovereign those of favorite tribes, God was, upon occasion, 
jealous, forgiving, revengeful, or merciful ; actuated by the 
same motives as those of an earthly monarch. Heaven 
was God's home ; but he often came down to the earth, 
as a king left his palace and visited his provinces. God 
governed in the world, so men thought three or four 
thousand years ago, exactly like a Pharaoh, 

As the centuries passed, the thoughts of men widening 
and their ideals becoming ennobled, Theology increasingly 
became a reflex of the expanding thought and aspiration. 
iVs Society became more peaceful and life's burdens easier, 
a kindlier tone was associated with " divine things." The 
successive changes in Theology, that were brought about 
by the advances in human development, were preserved 
with the some degree of exactness in written speech. The 
invention and use of writing gave a previously unknown 
force to Tradition. Consequently, in the sacred books which 
accumulated from age to age, ancient and outgrown 
thoughts of God were handed down to posterity side by 
side with the newer faiths ; but with an authority that 
again and again created dissension among believing re- 
cipients, and often forced, apparently, Keligion itself into 
conflict with growing Knowledge. 

In the Hebrew Scriptures, for example, Yahweh appears 
in several reciprocally antagonistic representations, He 
is now a " God of War," and then a " Lord of Peace." 
He is a "jealous " God here, and a " long suffering, easy 
to be entreated " God, there. At one time He commands 
the warriors of his people to "dash out the brains of" 
even " the babes " of their enemies, and at another, He 
counsels as a " Father remembering his children " when 
even a " mother might forget her babe." In fact, the 
Hebrew sacred writings are signal illustration of the reflex 
in Theology of the convictions, struggles, growing aspira- 
tions and uplifting ideals of the successive generations. 
They are preserved among large numbers of the human 
race even at the present day ; and shape more or less com- 
pletely, for myriads of human souls, the forms of their 
" Faith in God." 



202 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART T 



Another glance at History is necessary before I can offer 
an answer to our question. 

Four hundred years ago one of the most stupendous 
changes that ever took place in man's thought of the 
Universe, was begun. The ancient notion of the relation 
of the earth to the sun and stars was proven to be wrong. 
The Coper mean theory of the Universe described the earth 
as in motion ; swinging around a far-away sun. The 
telescope of Galileo penetrated the space of the supposed, 
concentric spheres which w T ere thought to hold the planets 
and stars, and disclosed the starry universe as far larger 
than man had ever dreamed. Kepler's laws of planetary 
motion did away forever with the dogma of a "firmament." 
Newton's discovery of the law of gravitation gave a new 
idea of the quality of physical forces, and demonstrated a 
possible unity of Force operating among all worlds. The 
circumnavigation of the globe forced out of the beliefs of the 
intelligent, the existence of the "Mount of Purgatory" 
and the " Cave of Hell." The thought of a Heaven just 
above the visible stars, with the throne of God there, and 
its surrounding realm of angels, disappeared. All these 
revolutions took place in the thoughts of civilized Man, 
producing the most momentous intellectual changes, pro- 
bably, that had ever occurred thitherto. 

Under the new knowledge, of course, the old Theo- 
logy could not remain dominant. More and more the 
conviction grew, that in a Universe whose center is every 
where and whose circumference is nowhere, it cannot be 
true that the Deity is centralized and enthroned. With 
the thought of the infinite opening out of Nature, the belief 
in a real co-diffusion of Divine Presence and Power grew. 
With this new sense of omnipresent and all-powerful 
Divine Being, the whole of the old Monotheism and of the 
Monarchic Theology, began to weaken. In many direct- 
ions the question was asked, "Is it possible longer, 
rationally, to think of God as represented by Tradition ? 
Can there possibly be an essential separation between God 
and the World?" 

Many of the clearest minds perceived, then, that most 
of the cherished religious traditions, as, for example, the 



1S77 



WHAT IS "FAITH IK GOD?" 



208 



story of the " Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden ; " of 
belief in the Devil ; of the necessity for a unique divine 
Incarnation ; of the proffered reason for an Atonement 
between God and man ; of the whole traditional " Scheme 
of Salvation ; " of the heavens and hells ; of the expected 
victory of God in a conflict with a hostile Lord of this 
World : — that all these and like inherited beliefs could have 
come into existence, only when Deity was thought of as 
limited in power, and distant in space, and different in 
Essence from man and the world. This Theology, in 
greater of less degree, yet persists, but the history of the 
recent past, especially of the last two hundred years, is the 
record of a conflict between the old traditions and the new 
religious consciousness, in which the old belief has been 
gradually perishing and a new faith coming into re- 
cognition and acceptance. 

At this point I am prepared to offer an answer to our 
question. As I said at the outset, a tenable faith in God, 
for us, must be such faith as is adequate to, and worthy 
of, the clearest knowledge and the most approved theory 
of the Universe, and of the demands of the present devel- 
oped Ethical Sense of mankind. 

Our faith, then, should be nothing less than this. 
" The Infinite and Eternal Energy, the Source whence all 
things proceed," is but a scientific symbol of the Faith 
in God we must hold. We believe, then, in God as Omnipo- 
tent, as Omnipresent, as Perfect Being ; as Immanent 
forever in the Universe ; necessarily its Source and Life ; 
including within Himself the Universe as His creation, or 
His manifestation. To us the original, immediate Power 
and Agent in the Universe is God : the very Substance and 
Life of all that exists ; directing Creation, not by secondary 
and delegated powers, but being Himself the Power and 
original Mover, from the mote in the sunbeam to the 
nebulae of farthest space. 

When, for example, " the spectroscope proves that 
that molecules on the earth pulsate in harmony with 
molecules in the stars ; — when there is forced on one 
the inference that every point in space thrills with an 
infinity of vibrations passing through it in all direct- 



204 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



ions, what else is to be believed but that there is a 
Unrverse, not of dead matter, but of an infinity of Life." 
When it is proved that the motion of this little planet of 
ours is not made except as it is enmeshed in a perfect web 
of forces, binding it to the remotest speck shining in the 
sky which the telescope pierces, how can w T e close our eyes 
to the conclusion, that, unbroken, omnipotent Pow r er 
pervades all ? When it is learned that nothing can sepa- 
rate a sand-grain, or Man, from the same bond of ceaseless 
Life and Force, who can fail to feel that the eternal and 
the infinite Being enfolds all. We are all partakers in 
substance with the suns and stars. We are indissolubly 
bound to all that is, w T hether atoms or constellations. The 
word Universe thus takes on a new and a glorious mean- 
ing. The World's law 7 and order are seen to be the ex- 
pression of One who thus w r orks out his own will. The 
centuries, and each moment, are Divine expressions. 

Under this new " Faith in God " the old problems and 
mysteries of human experience are undergoing readjust- 
ment and reinterpretation. It does not fall w T ithin the 
province of this essay to set forth a Theodicy ; to justify the 
ways of God with the World and with Man, but I may say 
that, under the new faith, I am confident there is a sublime 
interpretation possible for the world-old conflict which, ever 
arises in brain and heart over the mystery of the misery, the 
suffering and the sin which appear on all sides and within. 
I believe that in a sublimer sense than ever, the past cry 
of faith, "Yet God is good," will issue from .Religion in the 
future. There is need for a larger perspective, far larger 
than man has yet known, to call it forth ; — but that larger 
view will surely be opened up. 

Certainly, with the new Faith, it can not be maintained 
that the old, savage imagining, that God is cruel, vindictive, 
revengeful, is true. For were this imagining true, the moral 
nature of man, in its present exalted development, w 7 ould 
necessarily declare that God is inferior to the human soul, 
and, besides, its own existence could not be accounted for. 

But, also under the new Faith, we can no longer accept 
the opposite extreme of belief which has sometimes pro- 
claimed that God is to be regarded, in accordance with 



1S77 



WHAT IS " FAITH IX GOD?" 



205 



the most gentle human Ideal, as tender and loving. 
For were this true, we should ignore the terrible strife, 
cruelty, and death in Nature; and the sin, guilt and suffer- 
ing of Humanity;. 

In the new Faith in God, the world's sin, and pain, and 
death must be regarded as existing, not in spite of God's 
will, but as being in some way, Divinely ordained agencies 
by w 7 hich, more and more, an abounding righteousness and 
peace are wrought out. It could be imagined in past 
times that the baleful things of the world fell upon it 
through the machinations of a Devil, or of Evil Forces, 
which a distant God could not control. But such con- 
clusion can not be made ours. We are compelled, in even 
a stricter sense than that which Calvin felt it, to conclude 
that the Universe is absolutely of God's creation and control. 

If of God's " creation," what then? There is nothing 
more certain than that the Being w 7 ho made and controls 
Nature and Man can not be less in qualities than the 
best of his creatures. If, therefore, any creature is bene- 
volent, loving, pure, then it must be true that the Creator, 
whatever else, or more, He may be, can not be less than 
the creature. Upon this fundamental and inexpugnable 
assertion of the ethical Keason, our faith will base a firm 
hope that, however mysterious Life may be made through 
the countless facts of sin and suffering, time and a sufficient 
perspective will show that all things and events are parts 
and moments in the development of the Universe, which, 
somehow at sometime, brings that which is best for them, 
— to each and to all beings. 

"Worse than foolish were we to make our momentary 
experiences the criterion of the whole of the Divine Pur- 
pose. I see, therefore, no grander or more justified attitude 
for Man at present to take than steadily, in solemn trust, 
to view human life and all life, as in movement through the 
inexplicable happenings of each day and of this w 7 orld ; and 
through the limitless stretches of time beyond this world ; 
somehow towards that which is more beautiful, more pure, 
more peaceful, and ultimately perfect. 

To this conclusion must we now come, or to none that 
is at all tenable. To deny this conclusion is to blind our- 



206 



FKOM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



selves to all present knowledge, and to violate our highest 
personal law, — our Moral Ideal. We are products of the "in- 
finite and eternal Energy from which all things proceed;" 
and, so long as we think at all, we must conclude that the 
effect can not be greater than its cause. God can not be 
essentially malevolent, if there is benevolence in any man, or 
anywhere else in Creation. It needs but time and large- 
ness of vision for us to feel certain, that the Force, the Will, 
the Providence, the God, who is in very truth our eternal 
Father, is causing all things to work together, in order to 
perfect a Purpose which is certainly not less than all-wise 
and all loving. 

To this height of solemn and sublime Faith are we called 
at the present day. This Idea of God lies at the source 
of our definition of Religion. It is really a transfiguration 
of the supreme conclusion of man's most mature Philoso- 
phy and Science, under direction of the deepest Moral 
Sense yet reached. And I am confident that to this faith 
the religious institutions of Christendom, and of the world, 
will soon or late be conformed, just as in the past they have 
time and again dropped old, outgrown and outworn 
garments and clothed themselves afresh in vestures of 
larger truth. 

I commenced this essay with a declaration from one of 
the leading philosophical thinkers of the present age. Let 
me close with an expression of the same Faith from one 
of to-day's clearest-eyed poets, who sings of, — 

" God, which ever lives and loves, 

One God, one law, one element, 

And one far off divine event 

To which the whole creation moves." 



This religious statement of belief in One Being, as 
Source, Director and Disposer of all the forms and of all 
modes of being ; this Faith in the infinite and eternal God, 
which I am confident all mature speculation upon the 
Universe must at length reach, I associated later as I have 
said, with the questioning which arises before the pro- 



1879 FAITH IN GOD AND THE FACT OF EVIL 207 

foundest mystery confronting Man in his experiences ; 
— the fact of Physical and Moral Evil. 

The argument which my reasoning conceived then was 
elaborated in the following address delivered at a " Gene- 
ral Convention of the Unitarians of the Middle States," 
held in Philadelphia, at the end of October, 1879. 

II. 

Faith in God : How Compatible w t ith 
the Fact of Evil. 

By the term "God" I indicate Absolute Being; — Being, 
thefore, which, of and within Itself, is Source and Sub- 
stance of all that is. 

With these words I attempt to express what I am 
convinced is man's ultimate thought. If they do not 
convey this thought all to who hear me well, — any other 
words which will signify that there is infinite and eternal 
Being, from Which, or from Whom, all things have 
derived their existence ; in whom they live, and move, and 
have their own kinds of being ; by whom they are 
governed and disposed, — in brief, One Being of whom, by 
whom, in whom, and for whom the changing Universe 
comes, is, and goes, — such words will embody essentially 
what I am thinldng when I say " God." 

A real and personal acceptance of this thought I look 
upon, for the purpose of this address, as belief or faith in 
God. Faith in God, so described, I hold to be the 
necessary conclusion to which man finally comes, when, 
under the accumulating philosophy and science of the 
ages, he meditates seriously upon the question " Whence 
came myself and the World ? " 

Among the logical consequences which flow from Faith 
in God, as here specialized, is the conviction that infinite 
Being is immeasurably greater than any finite being ; 
that the eternal Source is infinitely more than any of its 
temporal products ; that, therefore, the divine Creator 
certainly surpasses in all qualities the most excellent among 



208 



FEOM Civ EE I) TO FAITH 



PART I 



all His creatures ; that God is, therefore, at least better 
than man. Consequently, no human being can have an 
ideal so sublime, or an aspiration so exalted and holy, that 
there is not at least its equal in that which inheres in, or 
qualifies, the divine Eeality. This conviction I must 
accept as made necessary by the laws of matured human 
thought. 

A great difficulty, however, in the way to the full ac- 
ceptance of this conviction, and to some minds an insur- 
mountable obstacle, is the ever present fact of experience 
called Evil ; — the terrible two-fold presence of Physical 
and Moral 111 ; namely, struggle, pain, and death in the 
physical world, and sin, with its consequences, in the 
world of the soul, that is to say, the psychical domain. 

In insisting, therefore, upon what I have said of God, I 
cannot ignore those facts of Nature and Life which are often 
certainly as bad as our worst. I cannot but recognize the 
momentous question " How is it possible for Evil to exist if 
the Divine Being is, at least, better than ourselves ? Since 
we naturally dread, and seek to avoid, pain and death ; 
and since, in our highest moods, we recoil from disobedience 
to the demands of conscience, how can He who is the 
Source of all, if He is as we represent Him, bring that to 
pass which, in our most exalted moments, we would, if we 
could, utterly destroy ? " 

I do not presume to be able to solve the problem thereby 
raised. That problem is involved in mystery we cannot dispel. 
I repeat the inquiry for these reasons. First, desiring to lay 
special stress upon what I hold to be the Faith in God 
made necessary today, I; know that the question just asked 
inevitably arises among those who hear me. Next, I ask the 
question because I wish to claim that, whatever solution of 
the problem may be given, we, who are familiar with 
what the laws of thinking demand, must hold to the belief 
that, however great the mystery in which this problem is 
placed, God who is the One, before all, over, all, through 
all, and including all, must at least equal in quality any of 
his creatures ; indeed, that, necessarily, He is at least better 
than our best. My third reason for the question is, that 
I hope to be able to point out some facts of observation 



1S79 FAITH m GOD AND THE FACT OF EVIL 209 

and experience which tend to confirm the faith in God 
which I have declared is at present logically 7 necessary. 

Recall some of the most notable attempts man has made 
to explain the presence of Evil in the world. 

Mankind in the far past, like savages at the lowest stages 
of civilization now, have believed that the ills of nature 
and life are, for the most part, to be ascribed to myriads of 
invisible beings, working in themselves and in the world, 
both the good and the evil manifest there: Practically un- 
conscious, in any real sense of the words, of One Being 
over and through all, to Whom to refer the origin and 
guidance of the Universe, the savage naturally interprets 
the ills of the visible world and his own evils by the 
activity of a host of invisible powers, or spirits ; dwellers in 
a realm other than his own, yet different from his own 
in little else than in the power and extent of the sway of 
its inhabitants. 

But this, or a like, solution of our problem, we who 
are here cannot accept. The civilized man can find no 
satisfaction in either Fetichism, or in any form of Poly- 
theism. "Whatever else w r e may think, we must, in the 
end, refer the events in the world to One Being who is 
over and through all. Let that Being be believed to be 
better, or worse, than ourselves, w r e must at the last 
refer all that is and happens to One, — the One whom we 
have named " God." 

It is not possible, therefore, for us to accept the solution 
of our problem given by that belief of ancient peoples 
which is called Dualism, or Ditheism. To. the immature 
thought of part of the Humanity of the far past, this 
answer was for a time satisfactory. The ancient Persian, 
for example, thought that the only way for solving the 
problem is to believe, that there are two Powers over the 
Universe, from which all the good and evil affecting Nature 
and Man come. This solution, however, could not long 
stand unmodified. The growing human mind insisted 
upon an ultimate Unity in the direction of the world. The 
Parsee himself arrived at length at the conviction that 
Ahura Mazda, the Principle of Good, is finally to obtain 
complete victory over Angra Mainyu, the Principle of 



210 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PABT I 



Evil ; and that both these Powers have their source in, and 
are dependent upon, One original, inscrutable Being. 

In the development of the faith of which we are heirs, 
the Dualistic creed has played an important part. The 
tribal monotheism or monolatry of the Jews previous to 
the Captivity, when brought into contact with the faith of 
Persia, w r as, in a very important manner, influenced by the 
beliefs of the conquerors. The Persian Dualism strongly 
impressed Jewish theology during the Captivity. It 
thereby affected the early, and much of subsequent, Christ- 
ian faith. It was this which gave a place in Jewish and 
Christian theology to Satan, or a devil thought of as God's 
enemy. The monotheistic consciousness of twenty cen- 
turies ago was strong enough to assert that the Devil is 
inferior, though hostile, to God ; but it was not mature 
enough then to perceive that by making the Devil inferior 
to God, and yet his antagonist, it thereby asserted that the 
Divine Being is responsible, if not for the origin, certainly 
for the continued existence, of his Adversary. 

After many centuries of development, the growing con- 
sciousness of pure Monotheism in Christian thought culmi- 
nated in the theology which was perfected by John Calvin. 
This great Genevan boldly asserted that God, and God 
alone, is responsible for the Universe and for all that comes 
to pass in it. The chief strength and excellence of Calvin- 
ism lies in just this article of its creed, — that, to One 
Absolute Being all things and events must, somehow, be 
referred. 

We, who are the heirs of the same religious development 
with Calvin, are, like him, monotheists in the strictest sense 
of the term. Neither Polytheism nor Dualism can furnish 
for us a satisfying answer to any question we ask about the 
existence of Evil. Under faith in One God, if anywhere, 
must w r e look for the desired reply. 

We come now to a part of our discussion fraught w r ith 
most momentous importance. 

One monotheistic solution, that of the master theologian 
of the Protestant ^Reformation has been given to our pro- 
blem, I have said. But is that solution the one which we 
must accept ? Evidently, in my belief, it is not. I have 



1879 FAITH IN GOD AND THE FACT OF EVIL 211 

declared that, whatever answer may be given, you and I 
certainly must at last be satisfied w T ith the faith that, how- 
ever great the mystery is of the existence of Evil in God's 
creation, the Creator must be, this notwithstanding, at least 
better than the best of any of His creatures. But God, as 
Calvin thought of Him, to judge from the standard by 
wlr'ch you and I measure, cannot be regarded as even as good 
as our own best. Calvin believed in One God who is the 
Source and Lord of all things and events ; but he believed in 
Him as having foreordained, for his own glory, an everlasting 
realm of sin and pain ; a realm far worse than the worst we 
can imagine. Calvin made God responsible for a condition of 
the Universe inconceivably more fearful in horrors than the 
best human benevolence, surely, would tolerate. He asserted 
that the Devil, Hell and an everlastingly tormented, rep- 
robate portion of human kind, are immortal things. Pie 
asserted that God, for his own glory, has put a large part 
of his own Creation under a never-ending curse. This 
dogma, surely, does not apprehend God as being better 
than, or even as good as, we are; for who of us, at our 
best, would not, if he could, blot Evil and all its accom- 
paniments out of existence ? 

But some one may ask, " How dare you measure God's 
moral worth by human standards of right and wrong ? 
Evidently,, both physical and moral Evil are facts in the 
world that God has created ; and most disastrous, tragic 
fads too. Why, after all, was not Calvin right ? " 

Consider, however, these additional facts. You and I, 
like all other beings, are creatures of the One God. Now", 
if we are to rely upon any principle of reasoning withiireur 
apprehension, it is impossible for us to think of any creature 
as really independent of, or as wholly different from, its 
creator. For this reason, it is impossible for you or me to 
have a standard of right or of good that can be essentially 
different from, or different at all except in degree, from that 
which is true of Him from Whom we, and all that we are 
or have, have come. I£ therefore,, I could think of my 
Creator as essentially of different moral quality from my- 
self, I should, thereby, declare myself to be wholly dif- 
ferent from Him, of Whom and by Whom, I came into 



212 



FKOM CKEED TO FAITH 



PART 



existence. An effect would thus be looked upon as essen- 
tially unlike its cause. Such conclusion, however, would 
violate, or ignore, all the known laws by which we reason. 
"Whatever others may say, this, at least, you and I must 
say ; — God cannot be, in any real sense of the words, 
wholly different from man. While, therefore, we believe 
that the Infinite, Eternal One is ultimately responsible for 
the existence and for the condition of whatever He has 
created, we may be sure that the Creation has not been 
given existence, nor has its condition been brought about, by 
a Being who is essentially different from you or me. We 
may not, through this certainty, be able to explain the 
mysterious presence of that which we call Evil, but we can 
be sure that, were this mystery interpreted, we should not 
find it having place in the Universe under any lower, or 
essentially other, moral law than that recognised by the 
purest, noblest soul among ourselves or our fellow beings. 

So long, therefore, as we are forced by the laws of our 
thinking to reason from effect to cause ; so long as we 
are compelled to believe that a cause is greater than its 
effect, or, that the cause is at least equal to the effect, just 
so long we must conclude that, whatever answer may be 
given to any questioning about the existence of Evi!, you 
and I must at last be satisfied with the conviction that, 
however great the mystery is, God is nevertheless as good 
as, or better than, our own best. We must rest in a faith, 
expanded by our larger knowledge, akin to that of the 
Isaiah of the Captivity, who, as he saw his countrymen 
yielding to the influence of the Dualism of Babylon, 
declared in the name of Jehovah : — 

" I form the light, and create darkness ; I make peace 
and create evil ; I, Jehovah, do all these things : and there 
is no God else beside me, — a just God and a Saviour." 

But, as I said in beginning this address, the realm of ex- 
perience is not utterly barren of support for our asserted 
faith. Indeed, I am confident that there many facts, 
even in the physical world so full of strife and seeming 
cursing, and in the sin-burdened world of man, which go 
far to confirm the hope which England's poet-laureate has 
sung for us, that, " good will be the final goal of ill." 



1S79 FAITH IN GOD AND THE FACT OF EVIL 213 



Take, for example, the domain we call Nature. Read 
with me a chapter from physical science. Do this with 
the most comprehensive application of its conclusions. 
Let us ignore, at the outset, the special relation of Nature's 
course to you or to me as an individual, or to any one person 
or thing. If we do this, I am persuaded it will gradually 
become apparent that in Nature there is Power at work 
whose acts are, at least, not less than what we would call 
wise and good. We shall see that our own exalted ideals 
of what are called, progress, order, peace, beauty and duty 
are actually in process of realization in this domain of 
which we are part, and which we do not control. 

Follow, for example, the line of this planet's development 
as now traced in the hypothesis most generally accepted 
by men of science. 

The next few pages of the address may be omitted here. 
They were written in exposition of the Nebular Hy- 
pothesis which was foremost, forty years ago, in scientific 
speculation upon the origin of our planet. The theory of 
the formation of the world now most widely favored 
among scientific philosophers differs somewhat, but only 
in specific detail, from that of Kant, La Place, and Hershel. 
The omitted pages are not necessary as a support of the 
argument here under exposition. I resume the address 
far enough along in its description of the most probable 
course of planetary evolution, to bring the argument and 
the story of natural evolution together, fully in harmony 
with present day scientific speculation. 



At length we behold our world emerging from the 
conflict of the elements a two-fold being ;— a molten globe 
enclosed in only a less dense liquid sphere. We see the 
beginnings of earth and atmosphere. The globe itself, 
more like the white-hot substance of the heart of a volcano, 
surges under the tempestuous fluid enclosing it. But 



214 



FROM CREEP TO FAITH 



PART I 



inferior, viewed from the human standpoint, as this world 
is, compared with the firm, cool planet of to-day w 7 ith its 
sunlight and soft clear air, has it not gained already what 
we would call a higher form of existence than it had in 
the older past ? Certainly, to our thought, a change from 
worse to better has taken place. Of course, as yet no life 
is there, but a necessary preparation for this higher form of 
creation has been made. 

Coming farther along the series of what we, without 
question, w r ould call "developments," we behold the world 
encrusting as it radiates its heat, and the atmosphere 
growing purer. Within the darkening globe the energy, 
so fierce in the past, begins to be imprisoned. It bursts 
its bounds again and again, and pours red floods over the 
black world, but the thickening crust gradually gains a 
larger mastery. Hot torrents fall upon a hotter earth, 
amid perpetual tempests, and are driven off as dense 
mists into a sky unillumined except by the ceaseless flash- 
ing of lightning. Nevertheless, this elemental tumult is, 
to our way of thinking, more orderly than the still more 
disordered past. The forces that work in the planet are 
growing less violent ; the elements out of which the future 
world is to be formed are becoming more defined. Solid, 
liquid, and gas begin to have separate and permanent 
existence. No life is there ; but the immediate requisites 
for life have appeared. Out of the less than perfect old, 
to- speak after human notions, is coming the nearer 
perfect new. 

Ages later, behold our earth. Over it hangs a murky 
sky, still pouring down a ceaseless rain. By the ancient 
struggles of the forces within the planet, the solid crust 
has been broken into great heights and depths; and from 
the mountains into the valleys rush the boiling torrents of 
the skies, scouring down the heights and filling the 
depths. Fierce tornadoes continue to sweep through the 
air. The atmosphere is heavy with poisonous gases. 
Earthquakes shake and shatter the deepening crust. But 
"God's way is in these whirlwinds/' floods, and earth- 
quakes. " He makes then all his ministers." 

At last, the sun dimly illumines the darkness, and the 



1S79 



FAITH IN GOD AND THE FACT OF EVIL 



215 



troubled world grows more peaceful. Slowly the old fire- 
rock is ground into mud by the hot rain, and is piled up in 
regular strata. The cooling waters gradually fill with the 
lowest forms of life. The ground at length brings forth 
plants which, absorbing the poisonous gases of the air, 
fall and decay ; and a higher vegetation strikes its roots 
into the deepening soil. 

But what means this work of the countless ages ? Is it 
not what you and I would call a real progress ? What a 
paradise is the scene now pictured to us compared with that 
with which we commenced our reading of this chapter 
from physical science ! Although not one of us, or of our 
fellow creatures to-day, could for a moment exist in this 
atmosphere, yet, to judge from human standards, how ex- 
cellent, how orderly, how peaceful, how beautiful in com- 
parison with the past, is this present. 

Passing still onward, behold the forces of the world 
growing less and less violent. Gradually, dry land appears. 
The huge reptiles, fierce as the forces out of which they 
were born, are perishing. The air purifies and cools ; the 
sky brightens. Only now and then, comparatively, do 
volcanoes pour forth their desolating floods. Not so often 
as formerly is the terrible thunder heard. . With lessening 
frequency and force the tornado sweeps through the air. 
Mighty streams, like those indicated by the Colorado 
canon and the Missippi bluffs, are flowing. But these 
streams are insignificant things compared with the floods 
of the past. The mammalia, the higher animals as we 
judge them to be, have already appeared. 

At length we detect the human form, and discover the 
presence of the rational creature, man. Man, as we 
believe, the highest and therefore the last among the 
world's creatures. Not man, however, as we know him 
to-day, in the increasing glory of his power and know- 
ledge ; but man, surely far exalted above the lower animals, 
the thinking, inventing, aspiring creature bearing the crown 
of the earth's life. 

How gratifying, after our way of thinking, the scene we 
now witness; how serene, as we judge, in comparison, 
has all Nature become ! Dry earth, cool seas, pure air, 



216 



FROM CREEP TO FAITH 



PART I 



clear sky, shining sun by day and brilliant moon by night. 
The tempest how seldom ; the lightning how feeble. In 
the animal world how few remnants of the monsters of the 
past ; how prolific of life the earth ; how comparatively 
secure all creatures. Is it possible that this sunlit, calm 
earth and sky were once but a tempest of fire, or a molten 
globe torn by a mightier than volcanic energy ? Yes. Out 
of the fierce past has come this calm present : out of that 
lower life has come this higher. 

Moreover, all around us to-day the movement of what 
we call progress continues. Our earth is yet steadily 
reaching a yet calmer life. The forces of nature work 
more slowly and less disastrously with the lapse of ages. 
The earthquake of to-day, however destructive, is but a 
feeble reminder of a terrific past. The storm of to-day 
may awe us and devastate our work, but it is nothing com- 
pared with the tempests of the primeval world. The 
violence of nature is disappearing. Out of the conflict of 
the past the present serenity has come. 

I hold, therefore, that, looking in the largest way at the 
course of Nature, we see the human notions of progress, 
order, perfection, peace and beauty in some measure mani- 
fested in the doings of the Power at work there. By viewing 
the world as a whole, and in watching its movement along 
with the lapse of the ages, it is evident that what we call 
development has been the mark of Nature's course. Order 
has been coming out of chaos ; beauty out of deformity ; 
peace out of conflict ; movement towards perfection out of 
imperfection. 

Therefore, in the natural world, considered as a whole, 
looked at apart from the individual, the effects of what we 
call Physical Evil tend only to confirm our assertion that 
the God of Nature has done for Nature that which at 
least equals what man thinks of as good, or, indeed, as best. 

But when we turn to Man, is belief in a Divine Prov- 
idence at least essentially good, or in accord with what 
you and I think of as good, supported by human ex^ 
perience ? 

How is it, for example with Man in his physical 
relations ? 



1S79 FAITH IN GOD AND THE FACT OF EVIL 217 



In thinking over an adequate answer to this question, 
we should remember that Humanity exists in the midst of, 
and, to a certain extent, as a part of Nature. Man in- 
stinctively longs for, and seeks, well being, order, peace and 
beauty in his physical relationships. But it is true that 
these longings are never fully satisfied. Forces operating 
in the world often work disaster to him. He is continually 
in peril of cold, of want, of food, of disease, of wounds and 
death. Yet, at the same time, we should not ignore the 
fact, already noted, that man's existence is, in a very 
important sense, a part of the world whose course as we 
have seen is, in the long run, forward to what in our best 
judgment we think of as a better and higher future. In 
this increasing excellence of the world Man, like all other 
creatures, has a share : in its imperfections, too, of course 
he naturally has part. 

Now, judging by oar own standard of right we may 
ask here, ,, Why should we demand that our ideal of 
perfection shall be the measure of that which is evidently 
in a process of making out of imperfection ? " Man's ideal 
is of the world which probably is to be ; his experience 
is of a world in slow advance toward the realization of his 
ideal. Impelled by his ideal, he inclines to the demand 
that the end for him shall be reached without his passing 
over the path necessary to get to that end. 

But then, it may be asked, " Why has Man been placed 
in this world before it is prepared to afford him a per- 
fectly, orderly, happy, peaceful, beautiful life ? To this 
question I can offer no answer, except to say that Man is 
part of the developing world, - actuated by aspiring impulses, 
and endowed with powers by which to rise with the whole 
Creation from lower to continually higher, or other, degrees 
of excellence. 

But if we look at Human History with the same large 
apprehension with which we have looked at the history of 
the planet, I doubt not we shall find our faith in God 
tending here, as before, to an abundant confirmation. The 
past of Human History shows conclusively that, even so 
far as Man in his physical is relations concerned, there has 
been a constant advance from what we judge to be lower 



218 



FROM CREEP TO FAITH 



PART I 



to higher degrees of life ; and that this advance has been 
made largely through just this thing we call Physical Evil. 
Through just this thing which man shrinks from and 
condemns, is it, that much of what is most excellent for 
him has been secured. As Mrs. Browning declares,— 

" Knowledge by suffering enteretb, 
And life is perfected by death." 

Through his struggle with the forces and the things of 
nature, Man has risen from Savageism to Enlightenment ; 
from ignorance to knowledge. His instinct for self-pre- 
servation and his longings for perfection have stimulated 
him to act ; bis powers have been strengthened and made 
successful by action ; and his successes have given him new 
longings, new success, and new strength. In this way, as 
a race, Man has slowly secured prosperity. By his invent- 
ive faculty, under the spur of necessity, he has been 
constantly finding out ways for making the remains of the 
violence of the ancient ages of less and less disastrous effect. 
He has made the lightning less dangerous to himself ; he 
has even been enabled to send it about the earth on his 
errands. The storm, he can resist more and more success- 
fully by the better houses he learns to build, and the 
stronger ships he send forth on the sea. Fire and water, 
he compels to be his swift servants. Disease, teaches him 
the laws of health. Danger from savage beasts, and like 
survivals of the old, wild life, gives him skill to hasten their 
destruction from the face of the earth. Bead such books 
as that of Professor Marsh, — " The Earth as Modified by 
Human Action," and see how marvellously the world has 
been changed for the better, and Man elevated, by his use 
of Nature's forces. 

We can say, truly, of the career of Humanity upon the 
earth, that, in the largest sense, — that is, ignoring the 
individual, — its ' 'afflictions, which have been for a moment," 
have perpetually wrought out for it " an exceeding 
and lasting weight of glory," and that "its chastening," 
however " grievous " at the present, has afterwards pro- 
duced " peaceable fruits." 

Surely, considering Humanity as a whole, it is true, as 



1879 



FAITH IX G-OP AND THE FACT OF EVIL 



219 



we have found it true of our planet, that progress has been 
the mark of its movement ; order has come out of disorder ; 
peace out conflict ; beauty out of deformity. Through the 
life of Humanity " an increasing purpose " has run. Man 
has been constantly bettered in " the process of the sun." 

Now, what is true of the Whole is, in all probability, 
true of the parts which form the whole. 

Looking at Nature and Man in wide-reaching perspec- 
tive, we cannot doubt that their Author and Lord is, at 
least, what we would call wise ; and that the Divine Pro- 
vidence is, at least, what we would call good and beautiful 

Why, then, can we not trust Him as no less beneficent 
to every part of these wholes ? It does not follow, surely, 
that the existence and experience of any individual, most 
insignificant or greatest, is rounded out in any temporary 
existence, or in any one series of experiences. I doubt not 
that, could we look at the life of each individual in the like 
large way with which we have viewed the wholes of 
Nature and Man ; that is, in a considerable number of 
stages of its existence, we should see what we would at 
once acknowledge to be, at least, a wise, good and beauti- 
ful purpose running through it. 

God is his owm interpreter ; and in some nobler stage of 
existence we may learn how each individual in the 
physical world moves, through successive forms and modes 
of existence, only higher and higher ; and how each human 
individual, by his experiences in successive states of 
existence, is continually lifted upward. God's work moves 
slowly. A thousand years with him, we are told, are but 
as one day. Human longing for the perfect consumma- 
tion may be, indeed, but Divine prophecy and stimulus. 
Pain may be an agent for pointing the way to health and 
peace. Adversity may in the long run lead to prosperity. 
Death may not be the end-all to any individual, but 
rather, only an event in a ceaseless ascent ; — a passing of 
each being to only another of many stages, in a progress 
which sweeps onward through a more and more glorious 
passage of time. Physical Evil may, in fact, be wholly 
compatible with faith in One who is at least as good as, 
and even better than, any Human best. 



220 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PAUT I 



Turning now from the outer to the inner realm ; that is, 
from the Physical World to that which is distinctively 
named Spiritual, w r e ask, — How is the fact of Sin com- 
patible with our asserted Faith in God ? 

This question, as you see, carries us into the region of 
the Human Will ; it brings us face to face with voluntary 
transgression of acknowledged law. Our question at this 
point becomes, seemingly, much more difficult of answer 
than it has been. Yet, I think that, even in this relation, 
the probabilities are fully as encouraging as those which we 
have been discovering. 

I know that in the reasons which I am about to offer 
there lies a practical danger. They may appear to weaken 
the force of moral conviction, — the means through which 
Sin becomes the dreadful thing that, with a refined, matured 
moral sensibility, we feel it to be. Nevertheless, because our 
search is for truth rather than for emotion, let us, even 
here, seek for the truth, without reference to such possible 
consequences. We may rest assured that the proper moral 
sense will be preserved, notwithstanding all our logic, or 
reasoning. 

Let us look, then, directly at the plain facts concerning 
Man which are involved in this phase of our question. 

It is evident, first, that every human being is subjected 
to myriad impulses, arising out of myriad appetites and 
desires. It is also evident that, being moved by these 
natural impulses, the man acts. If he is hungry, or cold, 
or in danger, or is suffering pain, he instinctively seeks 
relief. He aims naturally at self preservation. 

But, in addition to what he does in obedience to his 
natural impulses, every normally organized man is so con- 
stituted that he passes judgment upon his impulses. He 
decides that some of them ought to be obeyed, and that 
others ought not to be obeyed. This function of his nature 
makes him what is called the Moral creature. Let the 
motive for such judgment be what it may : let it be 
pleasure, or utility ; or the prompting of ideas of truth, of 
beauty, of good apart from any consideration of mere 
pleasure or use, man nevertheless acts as judge of his im- 
pulses and deeds. 



1S79 FAITH IN GOD AND THE FACT OF EVIL 221 

But again, one of the commonest facts of our experience 
is that every man and woman often obeys impulses which, 
as their judge, either at the time of the act, or after it, he 
is sure he ought not to have obeyed. In this disobedience 
to recognised duty, it is, that what is called Sin takes place. 

Now, it is because men so often disobey recognised 
duty that when we advocate the faith that God is at least 
as good as, or better than, our best we are prompted to ask 
the perplexing question, " Why is it that in the domain of 
Being such as we idealize God to be, there exists a creature 
so formed that he can, and does, do that w T hich he judges 
he ought not to do? Why has not God, if He is what we 
believe Him to be, made Man with only such impulses as 
he ought to obey; or why has He not made him so that he 
will follow always only those appetites and desires which 
the moral sense impels him to judge to be right ? Why, 
in short, if God is what our faith teaches about Him, has 
He not made it impossible for man to sin ? " 

I know, of course, it would be folly for one to assume 
that he could remove the difficulties which are in the way 
to the answers to these questions. The most, therefore, I 
can hope to do is to continue in the direction in which we 
have been going ; and to point to certain facts in the inner 
life whose tendency is, after all, to confirm the faith in 
God to which the laws of matured reasoning lead. I can, 
at the most, hope that it may become probable from closer 
examination of our life within, that the fact of Moral 
Evil is in the human world while, at the same time, 
the God, who must be man's Source and Disposer is, 
nevertheless, at least " a just God and a Saviour." Con- 
tinuing, therefore, in the way in which we have been fol- 
lowing our thought, we must still regard Man as an in- 
complete being, dwelling in the midst of, and as part of, 
an imperfect world ; but also as advanceing, with the world 
in its progress from lower to higher degrees of development. 

Look, therefore, more carefully at just what Man is. A 
man is not only the culmination and crown, thus far, of 
the manifold life of the world ; he is not only the last of a 
long series of beings rising from the lowest forms of life 
towards himself ; but he is, also, in a very important sense, 



222 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



an epitome, or summing up, in himself of what is below 
him. His body is composed of matter; with material 
forces, such as gravitation, cohesion, chemical activity and 
the like at work in him. The lower vital activities, also, 
are operative in him. And, in large measure, he is nothing 
more than a highly organised animal. He exists at the 
head of this world's creatures, being in miniature the 
great world itself. Bock substance, earths, metals, chemi- 
cal-activity, plant-life, animal-energy, — all these things go 
to make up the physical man. Man has been well called 
the microcosm, or the "little universe." 

A further important fact, however, concerning man is 
this : he is not only the head of the earth's beings, and an 
epitome of the creation under him ; but he is, actually, a prac- 
tically new entity in the world of life. As Man, a man is a 
self-conscious spirit superimposed upon the world's rising 
series of lower beings. That is, a man is what we may 
call a spirit, who, under the stimulus of ideals, is endeavor- 
ing to bring under his own control the myriad collection, or 
combination, of forces and impulses constituent in the or- 
ganization of which he is head. 

It is in understanding this complexity of life ; in in- 
terpreting the relation of the self-conscious spirit to 
the lower forms of being with which the spirit is 
organically associated, that we are to find, if anywhere, the 
further facts which go to confirm our faith in God- 
In the human being there is a multitude of forces, each 
one of them, as it were, asserting itself ; while associated 
with them is the self-conscious spirit directed by its own 
energy and aims. Should it occur that any impulse 
active in this complex life is ever strong enough to lead to 
an act that is contrary to the judgment of the man, 
that is, of the human spirit active as conscience, then that 
which we call sin takes place. 

Here is the source from which issues what is called 
moral evil with the consciousness of guilt. Hence, flows 
the stream which, to our sight, often carries the man 
downward into degradation and seeming ruin. As Paul 
declared in the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the 
Bomans, — which has been called " The Miserere of the 



1879 FAITH IN GOD AND THE FACT OF EVIL 223 

New Testament," — " I know that in me, that is in my 
flesh, dwelleth no good thing. To will is present with me, 
but how to perform that which is good, I find not. The 
good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would 
not, that I do. I delight in the law of God after the 
inward man ; but I see another law in my members, 
w r arring against the law of my mind, and bringing me 
into captivity to the law of sin and death which is in my 
members." 

In reality, then, Sin appears to be an effect of a struggle 
between superior spirit forces and associated inferior factors 
that exist in the human creature, who is incomplete, and 
who is part of the Creation which, as a whole, is rising 
from a low past to a more exalted future. Were a man 
a wholly free spirit, he would never sin ; just as were he 
only a creature of matter, or w r ere he merely an animal, he 
could not sin. It is because, in the complex creature 
called Man, that which is distinctively the man, — the 
conscious spirit possessed of ideals of beauty, of truth and 
of goodness, — is placed at the head of an organism of 
physical and animal forces demanding that they shall 
conform to its requirements, that sin is possible ; and it is 
because of the, as yet, incomplete supremacy of the spirit 
in its relation to these forces, that sin actually takes place. 

We discover here the sublime facts which, I have come 
to believe, support the Faith of which I have been speaking. 
Whatever happens, the normal man, as self-conscious spirit, 
never wholly omits to demand, either vainly or successfully, 
that his own ideals shall be served. Through his con- 
science to the degree of its development the sane man 
insists, no matter how often he fails, — no matter how much 
bound by lower forces, — that his w T hole being shall be 
raised to higher and higher levels ; and that the inferior 
forces with which he is organically associated, be brought 
into subjection to his own purposes. 

Moreover Human History shows, when looked at in the 
largest way, — that is as a Whole, — that the human spirit has 
been surely, though, slowly gaining the mastery of the lower 
life with which it is co- organized. Looked at apart from any 
individual experience, it is clearly disclosed that spiritually 



224 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



mankind have been slowly rising with the passing of the 
centuries. 

As a race, Man has left the savage life behind him. As 
a race, I am sure that man is today more unselfish, less 
revengeful, purer, better in every way, more conformed to 
his ideals of right, of justice, of holiness and of love, than 
ever before. The very fact that we are able now to look 
upon the human world as exceedingly wicked ; the very 
ability mankind have gained to detect sin in more and 
more forms, has not arisen from any actual increase in 
human wickedness, but from Man's elevation to a moral 
level higher than he has ever before attained. It is 
where the moral sense is most aroused that the consciousness 
of sin is quickest and most real. It is where self-con- 
sciousness is fullest and the vision of perfection clearest 
that the sense of duty is most stern, and the evidences of 
disobedience of moral law most plentiful. It is not because 
men are worse, but because moral perception is stronger, 
that there is so much evil visible among the mankind of to- 
day. King David, for instance, was thought to be a man 
wholly after Jehovah's own heart. But such judgment 
was possible only so long as spiritual perception could 
not detect the enormity of theft, of murder, of adult- 
ery, and of idolatry. To-day, when David's life is thought 
of under the Christian ideal of the " Father in 
Heaven," how unlike a servant of the truer Deity the 
great King of the Jews becomes. We can confidently say 
that Man, as a race, has been growing sublimely in real 
righteousness. 

Just as in the realm of Nature, we saw that, through 
its violent course, order has been coming out of chaos ; 
peace out of conflict ; approach towards perfection out of 
imperfection : and just as, in the physical relations of 
Man, it is evident that the race has been rising, through 
its struggles with the things and forces of Nature, to higher 
and higher levels of power and knowledge ; so is it plain 
that in the inner human world, through the evolution of 
the spirit over the lower life associated with it, Humanity 
has been surely " dying unto sin and living unto right- 
eousness." 



1S79 



FAITH IN GOD AND THE FACT OF EVIL 



225 



We may, therefore, reasonably ask, as I have asked 
before. Is it not probable that what is true of the whole 
is also, in some way, true of every part ? We all do 
wrong: we all commit sin. Comparing ourselves, as we 
know we are, with what we know we ought to be, none 
of us can claim to be righteous. Again and again we 
violate our sense of duty, and are compelled to bear the 
burden of conscious guilt, and even to suffer the pangs 
of remorse. But while, in ourselves and everywhere 
among men, moral evil is present, shall we not, neverthe- 
less comfort ourselves with the hope, — yes, — the trust, that 
somehow, for each one, even this thing will in the long run 
minister to a final good ? Is it not probable that Moral 
Evil as well as Physical 111 is really compatible with the 
faith that the God of all is at least better than our own 
best? 

I leave our main question now ; but, in doing this,. I 
wish to put some other questions in its place. Perhaps 
asking these questions will do more towards solving 
satisfactorily the Problem we have been facing than all 
else I have tried to say. 

From ichere, and from whom, I ask, has come to us 
the power to make the perplexing inquiries we have had 
before us ? How is it that you and I have any sense at 
all of a possible incompatibility between our logical Faith 
and our experience ? It is to me evident, that were we 
not the creatures of One who is at least as good as, or 
better than, ourselves, there would no more be any sense 
of sin in us ; of any struggle towards goodness ; than there 
w ? as in those great reptiles which raged through the seas 
of the primeval world. 

Must ice not say that it is from God, our Creator and 
the Mover of our essential Life, that this ability and 
impulse to ask and to aspire have corne l If God is the 
source of our power to know good and evil ; the source, too, 
of all that is noblest in us ; how dare we say, however 
great may be the mystery of Evil as existent in his 
Universe, that He is not at least far better than ourselves ? 

Let us, therefore, humbly look upon the great Mystery 
confronting us, as involved in what must be a perfect 



226 



FROM CREED TO FAITH 



PART I 



Providence ; trusting that sometime and somehow the 
mystery will be made plain. Our work now is to do our 
known duty ; to struggle to become complete masters of 
our complex inner life; and to use the things and hap- 
penings of the world without, as aids in our advance 
towards the realization of our sublimest ideals ; — ideals 
which, without question we may be sure, are always 
immeasurably inferior to the Keality that God is forever 
making perfect in the Universe he has created. 

To this height had I been borne, intellectually and 
emotionally ; guided by my maturing information, philo- 
sophic reflection, and by what I think of as spiritual 
"intuition." My personal Faith had attained at that time 
to this consummate expression ; and there, ever since, 
it has remained, steadfast and content. 



I am inclined to associate immediately, with these two 
personally significant addresses, the lecture with which I 
closed a series of lectures delivered before the students 
and friends of the University of Minnesota in the late 
winter of 1886-1887. That closing venture was an attempt 
to obtain an adequate philosophic sanction for the "Belief in 
God " that I had set forth in the Philadelphia Conference 
address. Probably, however, my purpose will be just as 
well served to leave the lecture to appear in its place as part 
of the University Course, to be reproduced later among 
these " Memorials." 

It can be read there by any friend who may be enough 
interested in this profound theme to care for my most 
mature endeavor to clear away its difficulties, and to 
make surer man's culminating gain in Faith. 

The title chosen for the lecture, "Apprehension and 
Real Worth of the Principle of Philosophy," as well as the 



1913 



" THE FAITH OF THE INCARNATION " 



227 



discussion supporting it, is rather technical and abstruse, 
but I am confident that the process of reasoning followed 
in it leads to the discovery of the most valuable acquisition 
thus far made possible to Man in his search for Ultimate 
Certainty. I believe, consequently, that the culmination of 
the argument there elaborated is well worth the patient and 
earnest reflection of all who read these pages. 

A thoroughly practical application of what I regard as 
the greatest and most momentous of the " Ultimate Cer- 
tainties" in man's possession, I have embodied in a volume 
which was published as a birth-day souvenir in 1913, under 
the title "The Faith of the Incarnation : Historic and 
Ideal." 

In the supreme consciousness ascribed to Jesus of 
Nazareth, as it has been evolved in historic Christianity, I 
feel confident, we discern the increasing inworking in the 
manifold life of Mankind of just this consummate " Faith 
in God in " the God who is essentially inclusive of, and 
immanent in the Universe ; — its Source, Power, Life, 
Providence and End." 



II 

MIDLIFE MEMORABILIA 

1875=1889 



Memorial hymn. 



Eternal Being ! Source of all, and Lord ! 

Humbly we bow beneath thy sovereign sway; 
Both joy and woe at thy resistless word, 

Brighten and cloud each creature's fleeting day. 

But not to us, O God, is now this faith 

Fraught with the doubt and fear our fathers saw ; 

W e follow one who, from thy Spirit's breath, 
Caught the glad message, " Love works through my Law." 

He, like thy Christ, thy name, the Father, found ; 

He, like thy Christ, in man thy child discerned ; 
Wide as the world, he saw thy Grace abound ; 

Saw, and to men with eager spirit turned. 

Prophet of Grace, of human dignity ; 

Truth's bold evangel ; foe to every wrong ; 
Brave by thy might to set the bondman free; 

Girt with a power to make the freeman strong ! 

Father, may we, with like devoted zeal, 
Live for the faith that Law Divine is just; 

Strive for the life that aims at human weal ; 
Hasten Christ's day of perfect love and tiust. 

4< Dr. Channing Centenary." 

Washington, D.C., 1880. 



PART TWO 

MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



GHAPTEK FIRST 
OF THE WASHINGTON MINISTRY- 

After returning from Germany in 1875, I was unable 
for a year, because of certain private obligations, to seek a 
pastorate. But in the winter of 1876, I was one of the 
ministers asked to preach for the " First Unitarian 
Church " in Washington, D.C. Early in the next year, 
Feb. 9th, 1877, I was invited to a temporary occupancy of 
the pulpit of that Church. The Washington Unitarian 
Society was, at the time, entering upon one of the 
most interesting, probably the most important, of the eras 
in its history. 

a. The First Unitarian Church of Washington, D.C— 
For more than fifty years this Church had had place in the 
national Capital, and had borne witness there to a rational 
Christian faith. It had been subjected inevitably to many 
hardships, and had passed, with varying degrees of suc- 
cess, through many vicissitudes. After the Civil War, 
however, when the renewed national prosperity began to af- 
feet Washington City, — evident in an extraordinary increase 
of its population and of its social importance in relation to 
the whole country,— the desire arose among the Unitarian 



232 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



Churches, generally, to have a representative denomi- 
national Society in the " Federal City." 

This desire became so strong that in the National Unit- 
arian Conference, held at Saratoga, N.Y. in the autumn of 
1876, a resolution was passed that made the wish practicable. 
The Churches there represented promised to give $30,000 
towards the erection of a suitable Church building in 
Washington, " on condition that a like sum should be 
furnished by the local church, and the building finished 
and dedicated free of debt." 

Happily, at the time when I was invited to a temporary 
ministry of the Church, the prospect for a successful 
answer to the proposition of the Conference was almost 
clear. In those days the Society occupied the old Church 
building, on the corner of Sixth and D streets. This 
building had been the Church home from the year 1822. 
But, located where it was, it had become widely separated 
from the residence regions of the city as they were 
gradually moved Northwestward. For this reason, 
somewhat, there was a decreased attendance at the Sunday 
services. A more serious obstacle to the Society's prosper- 
ity had been occasioned because of lamentable dissensions 
arising at the approach of the recent Civil War. Thereby, 
some members of the Society had been alienated from one 
another and the Church attendance lessened. Then, there 
were some other, minor, causes of division which later had 
been seriously felt. 

a. Beginning of my Washington Ministry. — When I 
went to Washington there was a devoted, but small, body 
of regular attendants at the Church. In the community, 
however, a considerable number of persons who had once 
been either active members of the Society, or its friends, 



1877 BEGIN MINISTRY AT WASHINGTON 233 

were then holding themselves aloof. When I took up my 
work the Sunday morning congregations numbered to- 
wards sixty persons ; the attendance in the evenings 
was not much more than half that number. Besides, 
in the Society there were no active sub-organizations 
as, for instance, for charity, for education or for literary en- 
tertainment. The Society had ceased to have an effective 
organization except as it was a legal institution operative 
through a "Board of Trustees/' 

But there was, as I have said, a small and devoted 
group of persons maintaining the Church. And these 
people were feeling very hopeful of the near future, because 
of their well grounded expectation that a new building, 
well located, would be secured for them soon ; and that, 
with a stable, careful ministry, probably the alienations 
roused in the past would disappear, — by-gones would 
become' by-gones ; — and that then, all together, with a 
rallying of new friends, might realize somewhat worthily 
the high ideals of a Liberal Christian Church. 

As it happened, this expectation was met most cheeringly. 
Already in April, largely increased congregations were 
gathering weekly ; and we had become confident that the 
share of the building fund required of the Washington 
Society would be secured. 

On April 26th, in company with Mr. Henry A. Willard, 
Chairman of the Board of Trustees and other members of 
the Board, I was honored with the privilege of turning 
over the first spadeful of earth in our newly purchased 
building lot, at Fourteenth and L streets, in preparation 
for the foundations of the Church to be. Mr. Willard, to 
whose tireless energy and resourcefulness, the excellent 
progress made for the new enterprize was in largest part 



\ 



234 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART TI 



due, together with the other officials present, took part, 
in this memorable act. 

A month later, May 21st, we bade good-bye to the D 
Street Church, and, pending the construction of the new 
building, held our services in the Hall just back of the old 
Willard Hotel. Our congregations there were generally 
upwards of three hundred ; often larger than the Hall could 
seat. 

b. ComerStone for All Souls Church laid. — Just a 
month afterwards, on June 27th, with an elaborate cere- 
mony, in which more than seven hundred persons took 
part, the corner-stone of our new Church was laid. Here 
is one of several newspaper accounts of the ceremony. 

" The ceremony laying of the corner stone for the new 
Unitarian Church, which was to have taken place at 6.30 
last evening, was somewhat delayed by the slight thunder 
shower that came up about that time. This church, the 
foundation of which has just been laid, is situated at the 
corner of 14th and L streets. It is to be of the Eenaissance 
style, and the plan much resembles that of the Church of 
the Ascension. It is to be known as " All Souls Church." 
The arrangements which had been made for the reception 
and seating of spectators were admirable. At about 7 
o'clock a portion of the Grand Lodge of Masons of the 
District, who were to perform the ceremony of adjusting the 
corner stone, arrived on the ground, preceded by a detach- 
ment of the Marine Band. 

The ceremonies were begun with an eloquent invocation 
from Bev. Mr. Weld, of Baltimore, who asked the blessing 
of God upon their projected undertaking, alluding to the 
bow of promise which spanned the heavens as an indication 
of prosperity. The list of articles put in a box to be deposited 
in the stone was then read, as follows : — list of contributors 
to the new church building, roll of church members, con- 
stitution and declaration of principles, valedictory sermon 
in the old church, newspapers of the city, " Christian 
Register" and "Inquirer" coins of this year, roll of officiat- 



1S77 CORNER-STOXE : ALL SOULS CHURCH 285 

ing Masons, programme of ceremonies, "The Unitarian 
Year Book," officers of the church, annual report of the 
American Unitarian Association, list of pew and seat 
holders of " All Souls Church," proceedings of the Grand 
Lodge of 1876, Masonic calendar for 1876-7, organization 
of the Grand Lodge for 1877. 

The box was then placed in the corner-stone. The 
ceremony of applying the plumb, the level and the square, 
was then performed by officers of the Grand Lodge designated 
by the Grand Master, E. G. Davis'; after which, corn, wine, 
and oil were poured upon the stone as emblematic of plenty, 
prosperity and peace. The covering stone was then 
placed. 

Eev. Clay MacCauley delivered a stirring address, after 
which, Prof. Petrola, the renowned cornetist, rendered an 
exquisite solo, during which a collection was taken up, 

" The Corner-Stone Hymn," written by Mr. MacCauley, 
was then sung by the audience ; following which was the 
benediction. Numerous letters had been received, express- 
ing the kindest wishes for the new church. The church 
when completed will be one of the handsomest in the city." 

Corner-Stoke Hymn. 



O Thou all Holy One ! 
Our temple's corner-stone, 

To Thee we lay. 
Infinite Holiness ! 
Do Thou our offering bless, 
Seal it with righteousness, 

We humbly pray. 

Take Thou the house we raise, 
Make it thy dwelling-place. 

O Lord, our God ! 
That Thee all souls may know ; 
That all thy life may show ; 
That Christ in all may grow ; 

Be this abode. 



236 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



Come then, Thou Holy One ! 
Though heaven be thy throne 

Here dwell and reign. 
Make, by thy pure decree, 
This temple worthy Thee ; 
Thine shall be the glory be, 

Ever. Amen ! 

c. Organization of All Souls Church. — One of the most 
noticeable statements in the account of the laying of the 
corner-stone is the new name under which the old " First 
Unitarian Church " appears ; — " All Souls Church.' ' 

Soon after I had begun a supply of the Washington 
pulpit I believed that it would be well, all things consider- 
ed, for the church to make a new departure, because of the 
very important new conditions surrounding the revived 
and rapidly growing Society. I consulted with the Board 
of Trustees, laying before them 'details of a proposed 
reorganization. I had prepared a constitution radically 
changing the old constitution, yet keeping it still under 
the provisions of the legal statutes of the District of Colum- 
bia ; also, I had formulated a "Declaration of Unitarian 
Principles/' associating with it a "Bond of Union " for the 
Church membership ; further, I had proposed a system- 
atized grouping of sub-societies which should have in 
charge the varied interests that belong to the work of 
a modern Church. I recommended, finally, to sig- 
nalize markedly its mission in the city, that the Church 
should be named " The Church of All Souls/' or " All 
Souls' Church. " The Board of Trustees, which at that 
time was practically in control of the affairs of the Church, 
accepted the new name unanimously, and gave me carte 
blanche for the definite working out of the articles of the 



1877 ORGANIZATION \ ALL SOULS CHURCH '237 



reorganization. They gave me, also, legal counsel for the 
exact conformation of the old " Articles of Incorporation " 
to the needs of the new plan of church administration. 

On June 4th, at a meeting of the Board of Trustees, the 
new constitution was accepted, and steps were taken to 
give it legal authority. The members of the Society, 
assembled at the time, also cordially accepting the " De- 
claration of Principles," the " Board of Union," and the 
detailed articles of organization. 

d. — Election to the Pastorate of All Souls Church, In 
that month, the time had come for the choice of a minister, 
to be installed as the permanent minister of the reorganized 
Church. I was informed that, in all probability, I would 
be invited to the office. Naturally, I felt much gratified at 
the prospect of being asked to become minister in this 
very impoitant pulpit ; but, also, I felt much hesitation 
about under taking the onerous work which I had learned 
would await whomever would be chosen. 

On June 24th the Society met. At that meeting I 
received just three-fourths of the eighty votes of the ballot 
held for the choice of a pastor. TVhy the opposition votes 
were cast, I was not told ; but I was at once assured, that 
the opposition was not personal ; that it was either the 
effect of the long standing division in the Society, or of a 
misunderstanding of the new constitution, or of some other 
impersonal cause. For whatever reason, however, the 
meeting was adjourned for a week with the announcement 
that then another vote would be asked for, 

But the fact of the minority vote against me in that 
first balloting increased my disinclination to assume the 
important office. Consequently, I wrote on June 29th to 
the Board of Trustees, requesting that my name be not 



238 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



considered in connection with the permanent pastorate. 
The following letter came the next day as its answer. 

All Souls Church, 

Washington, D.C, 
Dear Sir, June 30. 1877. 

I am directed by the Board of Trustees to ac- 
knowledge the receipt of your communication of the 
29th inst, asking that your name be withdrawn from the 
balloting on Sunday next, and to say that your letter 
received earnest and careful consideration from each and 
every member of the Board, and that with one voice they 
have decided that the interests of the Society, as well as 
justice to yourself, require that your request shall not be 
acceded to. 

The Board are moved to this conclusion in view of the 
past history of the Society, and its present condition and 
prospects. 

They are unanimous in their feeling that the presence 
and co-operation of a pastor in the work of the Society are 
essential to its success ; and while they recognize the fact 
that a great work has been done during the past two years 
without a regular pastor, they feel that much more could 
and would have been accomplished under the leadership of 
a pastor around whom the people could rally, and who 
could lead them forward to greater work and wider fields 
of effort. Entertaining these views, in common with 
many of the people, they have been anxiously looking for 
the time when a selection could be made which could give 
promise of that career of prosperity and usefulness for the 
Society so earnestly desired by all its friends and sup- 
porters. 

The Board are unanimous in feeling that the time has 
arrived ; and they are not only unanimous in the feeling 
themselves, but they feel confident they but give expression 
to the feeling of almost the entire membership w 7 hen they 
say they believe you are the person who should occupy the 
relation of pastor to this people. 

You came among us at our call to supply the pulpit 



1S77 



PASTORATE : ALL SOULS CHURCH 



239 



for a limited tine. Known to scarcely any of our 
people you entered upon the work in the midst of our 
efforts to build a more suitable place of worship ; and 
from that moment to the present all are witnesses of 
your hearty, earnest, and intelligent co-operation in our 
work to secure that result, as well as of your great work 
in giving to us a form of organization under which 
almost the entire Society feel we are destined to go for- 
ward to greater usefulness in this city. 

Most of our people feel that the want of organization, 
the want of some definite expression of the views generally 
held by Unitarianns, and so admirably stated in the 
" Bond of Union and Declaration of Principles " prepared 
by you and adopted unanimously by our Society, has been 
our source of our weakness. 

Thanks to you, that cause has now been effectually 
removed, and we stand before this people with a statement 
so clear and true that it cannot but command the respect 
and admiration of liberal minded people everywhere. 

xldded to all the work you have done in the Society at 
large in going among the people ; the many ways in 
which you have rendered valuable aid to the Committee, 
in all which you have gained our affection ; comes the 
good word from the Secretary of the A.U.A., and through 
him from others among whom you have labored, of your 
successful efforts in the past, — words, too, which do but 
strengthen the affection we have for you personally, and 
our belief that under your leadership the influence of All 
Souls Church will be felt for good through all this com- 
munity. 

The Board appreciate the delicate feeling which prompted 
the letter addressed to them, and admire you the more 
for the spirit manifested in every line ; a spirit so forgetful 
of self, and so full of interest in the welfare of the Society ; 
a spirit, too, which they firmly believe if consecrated to 
the work here will redound to the glory of our cause. 

In view, therefore, of what has been stated ; in view, 
too, of the disorganized condition which must necessarily 
follow T a failure to extend a call at this time, the Board 



240 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA . PART II 



most respectfully insist on presenting your name to the 
Society on Sunday next. 

Very respectfully 

W. P. Dunwoody, 

Secretary. 

Rev. Clay MacCauley, 

Present. 

On July 1st, the adjourned meeting of the Society was 
held with a largely increased attendance. A unanimous 
invitation was then extended to me to become the pastor 
of the Church, 

In the next issue of New York Inquirer appeared this 
comment on the action of the Church — 

" Not long ago the Society was reorganized. There is 
now both unity and definiteness in its organization. It 
has adopted as a Bond of Union, a simple acknowledge- 
ment of ' discipleship to Jesus Christ and of desire for sym- 
pathy and co-operation in the study and practice of the 
Christian religion.' It has brought into organic connec- 
tion with the whole body, its Sunday School, its Sewing 
Society, a Parish Union, etc. It has also put forth, as 
the general voice of the Society, not as a condition of 
fellowship however, a Declaration of Principles, showing 
why Unitarians as individuals are professedly Christian ; 
why, as a Church, they decline to unite in any further 
confession of faith ; and yet how, as it is generally under- 
stood, Unitarianism is a protest against the creeds known 
as ' Orthodox/ These and other reasons make the people 
feel here that what was like a sand-heap has become an 
organism for which there is to be growth and, they hope, 
great usefulness hereafter, here and afar. 

With unusual unanimity, too, they have decided whom 
they will have as their pastor. Last Sunday they gave 
Eev. Clay MacCauley a unanimous call to their pastorate." 

In August, I accepted this call ; to continue my ministry 
from the second Sunday in September. 



1878 



DEDICATION : ALL SOULS CHURCH 



241 



At the time appointed for the dedication of the new 
Church building at the end of the next January, I was to 
be installed the pastor of the Society,, charged with the great 
responsibility of guiding it in its new era. 

e. Dedication of All Souls Church, and my Installa- 
tion as its Pastor. — A great deal of newspaper notice was 
given to the manifold exercises of that important mid-winter 
week. There were not only the " Dedication " and the " In- 
stallation " ceremonies, but, some very interesting sessions of 
a Conference of more than a hundred delegates sent from 
distant Unitarian Churches ; and also a memorable Social 
Festival with which the exercises closed. 

All Souls Church was dedicated on January 29th, 
1878. Rev. E. B. Ship pen, Secretary of the American 
Unitarian Association, opened the services. I conducted 
the formal " Dedication of the Church ;" reading, with the 
Congregation, a special " Dedicatory Service " which I had 
been asked to prepare. A "Hymn of Dedication," 
written by Mr. H. E. Woodbury a member of the parish, 
w r as sung ; and Eev. Dr. Eufus Ellis of the Boston First 
Church, offered the "Dedicatory Prayer." After the 
singing of the TeDeum y the Eev. Dr. Henry W. Bellows 
of All Souls Church, New York, preached the " Dedi- 
catory Sermon." The closing "Prayer" was offered by the 
Eev. Fielder Israel of Salem, Massachusetts. 

The Conference of the next day w ; as presided over by 
Major General Ambrose E. Burnside, at which time Eev. 
Dr. Farley of Brooklyn N. Y., gave some interesting 
reminiscences of the old " First Unitarian Church " of 
Washington; and the Eev. James De Normandie of 
Portsmouth, N. H., read a suggestive essay on " The 
True Idea of the American Church." 



242 MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PART II 

That evening, January 30th, the " Installation " of the 
Pastor elect was made, with the following ceremony. 

Introductory Service, by Eevs. C. E. Weld, of Baltimore, 

and Joseph May, of Philadelphia. 
Sermon, by Eev. J. F. W. Ware, of Boston, on the text 

" I live by the Faith of the Son of God." 
Installing Prayer, by Eev. C. A. Staples, of Providence. 
Charge to Pastor by Eev. E. H. Hall, of Boston. 
Bight Hand of Fellowship, by Eev. E. E. Shippen, of 

Boston . 

Address to the People, by Eev, Grindall Eeynolds, of Con- 
cord, Mass. 
Prayer, by A. M. Knapp of Bangor. 
Benediction, by the Pastor. 

I recall these exercises and the names of those who 
participated in them, chiefly as a personally gratifying 
memory of the culmination of the ministry, which, for the 
preceding year, I had given to this Church. 

I. 

SERMON AT LEAVING THE OLD CHURCH FOR THE NEW- 

The chief " Memorial " of the preceding temporary min- 
istry which I wish to associate with these " Memories," is 
the sermon which I preached when the Society left the old 
Church building, May 27th, 1877. I wished to commem- 
orate the closing of the historic doors with an address in 
which we all might fittingly remember by -gone days, and 
yet hopefully look towards the future. The congregation, 
then gathered, filled the old sanctuary. The theme I 
chose, and what I Said concerning it, were as follows 

Life's Progress from Form to Form. 

Tlte Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, l< Unto thy seed mil I give this 
land ; 7 and there he builded an altar unto the Lord* And he removed from 




All Souls Church, Washington, D.C. 
Dedicated January 2qth, 1S78 



1S77 



" life's progress from form to form" 243 



thence unto a mountain, on the east of Bethel, and there he builded an altar 
unto the Lord. — Gen. xii, 7-8. 

There float in the summer seas of the tropics myriads of 
beautiful creatures called the nautilus. A few years ago, 
while dreaming away a delicious day on the Gulf of 
Mexico. I spent hours in watching a fleet of these lovely 
ships of pearl, their filmy sails spread to the soft breeze 
and shining in the sunlight. As I looked at the exquisite 
things there came to my thoughts the little poem Dr. 
Holmes once wrote near an empty shell of one of these 
wanderers of the sea : 

u Year after year beheld the silent toil 

That spread his lustrous coil ; 

Still as the spiral grew, 
He left the past year's dwelling for the new, 
Stole with soft step its shining archway through. 

Built up its idle door, 
Stretched in his last found home, and knew the old no more. 

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee. 
Child of the wandering sea. 

* * * # # * 

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 

As the swift seasons roll ! 

Leave thy low vaulted past ! 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free, 
Leaving thine out-grown shell by life's unresting sea." 

To-day this song rises again in my thoughts. 

How well did the poet interpret life ! By a very neces- 
sity life has no abiding form. Itself is permanent, but 
moment by moment, a restless workman, it is shaping- 
some new abode, which, at length, it enters, and where it 
knows the old no more. 

Think how this marvellous bodily life of ours changes. 
You who have reached the maturity of your physical de- 
velopment, contrast your present bodies with the helpless 
forms you see in mothers' arms. Compare your present 
physical vigor with that you possessed in childhood, when 
the distances now so easily traversed by you were passed 
over with great difficulty ; when the weights now so light 



244 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



to your hands were too heavy for you to lift ; when the 
deeds you now accomplish with ease were impossible to 
your childish powers. Compare your physical manhood 
with your youth, and observe what countless differences 
there are between you, as the man or woman of to-day, 
and as the boy or girl of years ago. What ceaseless 
workers have you been through this score or more of 
years ! Over and over again have you shaped your bodies 
anew. As a babe, none of you could remain ; as such you 
must perish, that, as the child, you could come into being. 
It was but a few days ago I heard a mother lament, that 
the baby look had faded from her child's face, and that 
the new look of the little girl had come. And as the child, 
you, the ceaseless laborer, could not let your body remain. 
"With the passing of the years, you wrought maturer phys- 
ical forms for yourself. Now, you are a full-grown man 
or woman. But, even as such, you cannot continue. 
Every moment the work of change proceeds. Soon, an 
older face will take the place of the one you now bear, and 
at length the cycle of forms possible for you in the present 
life will have been passed through, and you will leave this 
world for a new realm of existence. The physical forms 
of infancy, childhood, and youth are behind you ; now, you 
labor to reach bodily shapes as yet unattained, and so will 
you labor until your earthly existence ceases. 

Mentally, too, what a varied series of shapes our life takes. 
" When I was a child," said the Apostle, " I thought as a 
child, I understood as a child ; but when I became a man, I 
put away childish things." It is so with the mental life of 
us all. None of you, who now sit here in the strength of 
mature intellect, could be content with the things in which 
your mind took pleasure years ago. Pleased with toys 
in childhood, you demand higher delights now. The 
little fancies w^hich then excited you, the reasons which 
then satisfied your questionings, the judgments you then 
made upon the problems presented to your thoughts, were 
far different from what you require to-day. W T hy this 
change? Simply because of the restless worker you are. 
As you impel your body from one form to another, so 
have you pushed forward your mind. Your eager thought 



1S77 " LIFE'S PROGRESS FROM FORM TO FORM " 245 



has taken, successively, this and that form, until you have 
passed from a feeblest consciousness of self and things about 
you to the stronger and clearer self-recognition and know- 
ledge of to-day. Intellectually, you cannot rest. Your 
mental life is perpetually changing. You produce a form 
of thought, use it, and then, therefrom, produce another 
form, from which, in its turn, you must pass to a yet 
higher degree of development. I saw a plant, some years 
ago, which was but a series of leaves suspended from a 
library wall. Each successive leaf had taken its birth from 
a previous leaf, and sustained its life, largely, by the death 
of the leaf out of which it grew. The latest-born leaf only 
was green and living. Behind it were but the shrivelled 
forms of what had once been leaves as green and living as 
itself. Soon this outermost leaf must, in its turn, give 
birth to another, and gradually die that the new leaf 
should grace the air. Has not your mental life been but a 
succession of states proceeding from the ignorance of 
infancy to your present maturer knowledge ? Your 
thoughts of to-day have come out of the thoughts of the 
past. Your present aspirations exist because you have 
transcended the longings of childhood. Nor will you rest 
in any form your intellectual life has taken. "What you 
are now, mentally, will perish that yon may become that 
which is yet better. 

And what is true of us as individuals is true of us as a 
race. Physically, we have become what we are through a 
constant transition, with the lapse of ages, from bodies, we 
know not how low in the scale of organization, to those of 
the excellence in which we now rejoice. And, as we see, there 
lie scattered along the centuries countless worn-out shapes 
through which our thought also has come. In language 
are traceable the shapes the human mind in its beginnings 
took. The carved walls of ancient cities and the lettering 
of old manuscripts tell us of modes of thought deserted 
now forever. The busy mind of man has been perpetually 
building anew for itself, and perpetually leaving the past 
for a larger future. It has, without cessation, been creat- 
ing new forms, and forever deserting those which were old 
that it might enjoy the new. 



24G 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



rABT II 



We need not seek farther to illustrate our truth. It is a 
law of life, that it may not rest at any moment or any- 
where : that it shall express itself in forms which constantly 
pass away that new forms may take their places. Life is 
the real Proteus. The inner force persists, but the shapes 
it takes are perpetually coming and going. 

Yet, while this is all true, and while it is our duty to 
recognize this clearly as the way by which all progress is 
made ; while we should see in this change from old to new 
the sure ground of hope that the world is to pass from 
lower to higher, from imperfection to perfection, neverthe- 
less, wherein the law directly affects us, we cannot help 
having a sense of sorrow with the inevitable changes we 
make. It is seldom that we can leave any past, and what 
we possessed there, without feeling that we lose what we 
would keep. However bright a future may be, however 
rich in promise any new form we have made may seem, 
we almost invariably turn with regret from the old. Only, 
when in the past and our dwelling there, we have known 
nothing but shame and pain, do we gladly forget the 
things which are behind and press forward. Mr. Emerson 
but expresses universal experience when he says that "the 
past is enshrined in beauty." For every people, there is 
no period so glorious as " the Golden Ages " which have 
perished. To every nation, there are no heroes so brave, 
so grand as those of the days of the fathers. The nautilus 
may " stretch in his last-found home, and," without "a 
pang "know the old no more." The butterfly may 
desert its chrysalis, and, with thoughtless spirit, spread 
its wings in the sunshine. But the self-conscious, lov- 
ing soul of man, in its progress from form to form, 
though it may welcome the new, still clings to that 
which is passing away. There is a touch of nature which 
makes the whole human world kin, in the picture which 
shows us a strong youth leaving fatherland to seek a 
a prosperous home in a distant country, but who, notwith- 
standing the hopes which fill his thoughts, is casting a 
long look at the receding shore. And how often, even in 
the midst of a later prosperity, does the dear old place one 
left in youth come up, with brightened beauty, in memory ! 



1S77 



life's progress from form to form 247 



How priceless is the worth of many things long after they 
have ceased to be anything but relics ! Why should the 
Old State House of Boston still stand ? It blocks the 
streets of that busy city ; its architecture has no beauty ; 
there is another State House on the top of Beacon Hill, an 
imposing structure, and well adapted to the present needs 
of the great Commonwealth. Ah ! it is the demand of the 
patriot heart which keeps that old building at the head of 
State Street. There, were witnessed some of the struggles 
in the defence of Liberty in America. Those struggles 
are over now. American Liberty has, now, hosts of proud 
defenders. We no longer need Boston's Old State House. 
Nor do we longer need Mount Vernon mansion, and many 
other old buildings we preserve with sacred care. But the 
outworn shells are dear to us, nevertheless. 

Man instinctively bears love to the past, and cherishes 
the things of the past long after they have had their day 
and ceased to be embodiments of living forces. 

It is not only true, then, that it is a law of life that it 
must express itself in forms which are forever passing 
away, that new forms may take their places, but it is also 
true that, for man, the transition from one form to another 
is almost invariably accompanied by regret at the change, 
and a tender memory of the old forms long after their 
usefulness has passed. . 

Dear friends, my thoughts naturally found this expression 
when I asked myself what I should say to you this morn- 
ing upon the subject in the minds of us all. 

We have felt for a long time that, for the future welfare 
of this Society, a better house of worship is needed than 
the one in which for the last half century the Society has 
dwelt. This necessity is but the effect of the working of 
the law I have sought to illustrate in our sermon. We 
are at last impelled te " leave our low-vaulted past," to 
enter a new abode in which we may more worthily express 
the great purpose which has brought this Society into being, 
and where we may become yet more than we have been, 
a source of blessing to this community. The doors through 
which we entered this place are about to be closed and 
idle to us. We are to enter a new-found home, and "know 



248 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



the old no more." Naturally, we look into the larger future 
with bright hopes and with strong resolves. We see before 
us a life by which we hope to be able to do far more than 
we ever have done, to make pure Christianity a power for 
emancipating thought, and inspiring holiness and love in 
our fellow-beings. God grant that we may be truly 
worthy our new opportunity ; that we may nobly lead 
whither we would have others go. 

But, hopeful as we are, glad as we are to enter the 
larger, brighter future, it is with saddened thoughts we 
leave this place, hallowed, as it is, by many years of joy 
and sorrow, failure and triumph. Here, more than fifty 
years ago, brave men and women, whose names are en- 
shrined in our memories, felt, as did Abram, that the 
promise was to them and to their children ; and here, 
with earnest prayer, they " builded this altar unto 
the Lord." Here they worshipped, and at length, 
one after another, answered the summons which called 
them from earth. Here their children grew up, many of 
them walking in their parents' ways, some of them yet 
among us, loved and revered by us all, as they are passing 
on into old age. Here the children's children, too, have 
worshipped ; and here, only last Sunday, before this con- 
secrated altar, we placed the sign of Christian Baptism 
upon some fresh, pure souls who will, I pray, remember, 
in after years, the tender grace of that day. Sacred asso- 
ciations have gathered about this place, and we cannot 
leave it without sorrow. 

The good which this church has accomplished here and 
afar we cannot estimate. Notwithstanding the difficulties 
which have been here met from time ; in spite of the 
hindrances within and without, which have opposed the 
free course of the faith here professed ; I doubt not that 
this place has been a source of true Christian blessing to 
this community, and to regions far beyond it. In large mea- 
sure I believe it has been true, as was hoped by the members 
of this church in an address sent to friends in New England 
fifty-four years ago it would be, that " Washington should 
become a radiant point from which the light of pure 



1^77 LIFERS PROGRESS FROM FORM TO FORM 240 



religion might be thrown upon the high places of our 
whole country. 51 

Standing now on the threshold of our old dwelling-place 
it would be most fitting for me, before we close these 
doors, to review the whole half century of our life. This, 
I regret to say, I am unable now to do ; yet, in glancing 
hastily over some of the church records put into my 
hands, I have noted a few facts it may be interesting to 
you to hear. As you remember, it was in the year 1820 
that this church organization came into existence. I read, 
that at that time " a very small congregation of Unitarians 
was collected in this city by Rev. Robert Little, who had 
been a respectable Orthodox Dissenting clergyman in 
England, and who at a great sacrifice for the cause of 
truth and religious freedom had abandoned the Orthodox 
creed." This little company of worshippers held their 
services in the Bath House, on C Street, between Sixth 
and Seventh streets, until, aided by friends at the North, 
they, two years afterwards, from the plans of the architect 
' of the Capitol, built and took possession of this edifice, and 
*on the 9th of June, 1822, dedicated it to the sacred use of 
divine worship upon Unitarian principles. Then com- 
menced the long, arduous career this society has passed 
through. But the founders of this church were sustained, 
as they declared in 1823, by a brave faith in the " progress 
of rational religion, and especially, of those views of 
Christianity which the wisest and best men in the com- 
munity regarded as most salutary to society, most sustaining 
to human hope, and most honorable to the government 
and character of God." They had determined to establish 
here a pulpit, from which, not only themselves, but their 
friends from . abroad, might hear a rational Christianity 
preached ; and, moreover, a pulpit from which " the most 
eminent men of the nation may have an opportunity of 
hearing the religion of the New Testament represented as 
something that shall command their respect, and lead 
them back, from the skepticism into which the finest 
minds are too often driven by irrational views of religion, to 
the hopes and to the peace which flow from enlightened faith." 
Less courageous souls, however, than those who at the 



i! 



250 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



beginning and since have upheld this church would have 
faltered and failed long ago before the obstacles which 
they at length successfully overcame. The name " Uni- 
tarian " is of itself a sufficient burden for a church to bear 
in a community outside of New England ; and, added to 
this, there has always been the obstacle here of the uncertain, 
transient character peculiar to the population of this city. 
For these reasons the way of our people has been espe- 
cially lonely and difficult. An address to Dr. Channing in 
1829, from the officers of the Society, declares that, at that 
time, the great burden of Unitariansm was borne by only 
about " thirty' pewholders, most of whom held offices 
dependent upon the will of others, and liable to be removed 
upon the change of political parties or the caprice of 
superiors." None of this small number was wealthy, and 
few, if any, could be considered permanent residents in 
Washington. Nevertheless, "on Sundays the church was 
pretty well filled, but the greater number of auditors were 
not pewholders and did not contribute to the support of the 
establishment." Yet this very fact, the Society held, was " 
sufficient proof of the importance of sustaining their 
church. This very fact — the transient character of the 
large audiences which gathered to hear Unitarian preach- 
ing — made them regard their church as " a central fire, 
warming, enlightening, and invigorating the most distant 
regions of the country." They promised, therefore, weak 
as they were, to keep the altar fire alight, if Dr. Channing 
would induce his friends to establish the altar firmly. At 
the time of this address the church was in great peril. 
The little band of pew-holders were bearing a heavy debt ; 
they were " surrounded with hostile sects, who were 
continually exciting the public indignation against them, 
and who would rejoice at their distress, and still more at 
their annihilation." The dread of being burdened with 
this debt kept people from associating themselves with the 
church, while the interest of the debt and the current 
expenses of the Society were becoming almost too weighty 
for the few longer to bear up under. What wonder they 
sent out an appeal for help ! I do not know how it was 
met, but they must have obtained the desired relief, since, 



1S77 



LIFE'S PPvOGEESS from form to form 251 



as we see, the danger they feared was turned aside. 
They were not despoiled of their altar. 

In this same address there is a statement of the reasons 
which actuated our spiritual fathers in their effort to save 
and strengthen their church ; a statement which, because 
it has not yet lost its force, I quote : " It is true," said 
they, "we are desirous of worshipping cur God, according 
to the simple forms of our ancestors, in spirit and in truth, 
without being obliged to enter a mental protest against 
one-half of what we may be obliged to hear, and it is a 
great comfort to us to be able to do so ; but we have still 
other objects in view. We wish to exhibit here, in the 
centre of the Union, at the seat of the National Govern- 
ment, not only the simple doctrines of pure Christianity, 
but an example of religious republicanism, a model of an 
independent church, unfettered by human creeds, and 
unawed by the mandates of Popes and Bishops, Presbyters 
and Councils, Synods and Sessions, and all the contri- 
vances by which spiritual pride seeks to control the 
consciences of men ;— manfully to assert that liberty with 
which Christ has made us free." Let the purpose of our 
fathers be ours also. 

I have no full record of the names of the preachers 
who aided this society in their endeavor to establish these 
noble principles ; but among those which were prominent 
in the first half of the Society's life are such honored ones 
as those of Bigelow, Dewey, Hale, Palfrey, Bulfinch, 
Longfellow, and J. H. Allen — names of men who, with 
devoted purpose and earnest words, proclaimed from this 
pulpit the free Christianity it is our privilege and honor to 
profess. 

Concerning the audiences which have gathered here 
during the past half-century, I need but say that there 
have been observed in them, as regular attendants, some 
of the best minds which have graced the Capital and the 
nation's councils. President " John Quincy Adams, Hon. 
J. C. Calhoun, Judge W. Cranch, Moses Poor, Win. G. 
Eliot, W. W. Sea ton, Joseph Gales, John F. Webb, 
Richard Wallach, Charles Bulfinch, and others, were 
among the founders of the church ; and among the earlier 



252 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PAET II 



worshippers, Daniel Webster, Chief Justice Marshall, 
Justice Story, and others, were frequently noticed. I need 
not attempt to recall any of the many honorable names 
known here in later times. You know them well. 

One word let me add in reference to the last score 
of years of our life. We see now a serene future opening 
to us. But we have passed through dark, dangerous 
days, and the darkest and most dangerous have been 
those of the last twenty years. Our whole country during 
that period has been fearfully disturbed, and Washington, 
as the head of the nation, has been the center of the 
intense struggle. All interests here have felt the influence 
of the general conflict. All the churches of the city have 
been more or less affected by it. 

Peculiarly trying has it been for this church, which, so 
much more than any other, is marked by the individuality 
of its members, and the consequent sharp assertion of 
personal opinion. But, notwithstanding all that is painful 
in our near past, there is much in it that we can recall 
with pleasure ; much that makes these w T alls very dear 
to us. 

This Society, we remember with pride, did stand 
faithfully by our country in its peril. And this we also 
gladly remember, that in 1862, when the hospitals of the 
District were overcrowded, our Society was the first to 
offer its building to the Government for the shelter of s : ck 
and wounded soldiers, an offer which, Secretary Stanton 
said, was " in such marked contrast with the behavior of 
some other societies that it was all the more gratifying to 
the Government " to receive it. And not only was the 
building offered, but " the ladies of 'our church volunteered 
as nurses, organizing themselves into committees for the 
care and relief of the sick and wounded. With most 
punctual fidelity and self-sacrificing zeal did they discharge 
their benevolent duties, subjecting themselves to fatigues 
and to diseases from which more than one of their number 
suffered." The minister, too, the Kev. W. H. Channing, 
daily visited the church hospital as a volunteer chaplain, 
doing all manner of good work, until his health was 
seriously affected by his " untiring and self-imposed labors." 



1S77 



life's progress from form to form 



253 



This generous gift of our church was naturally followed by 
great injury to the congregation. During the six months 
the building was used as a hospital the audience was 
dispersed, and not easily gathered when the church was 
reopened for divine services. Yet no one ever regretted what 
had been done. The people who reassembled after their 
voluntary exile felt only that their " sanctuary was made 
dearer than ever by the deeds of charity in which it had been 
the privilege of themselves and their friends to participate." 

Much more I should like to recall from our recent 
history, but I cannot now. Each of you knows what, 
especially, has endeared this place to him or to her, and 
you will doubtless remember for yourselves where I have 
failed to remember for you. 

I turn with you, then, to bid these old walls farewell. As 
we go, may we pray from the heart that we shall only the 
better be able to worship God and to exemplify the Gospel 
of Christ, in the new temple building for us, than has 
been in our power in this. And if there are yet among 
us those who are alienated, by whatever cause, from one 
another, may it be their and our prayer now that the 
barriers shall here be broken down and forgotten forever. 
We are doing a great work. Our cause is of so supreme 
worth that, for its sake alone, we should do all we can to 
enter the future with harmony of purpose and deed. Let 
us, as with one soul, uphold the standard of our free 
Christianity in this community. Laboring together, and 
with good courage, we shall, I doubt not, set up in this 
city a new altar, before which many will worship, gaining 
there new faith in God, in Christ, in man ; receiving there 
new courage with which to move forward in this life, and 
new hope for their entrance into the life to come. God 
bless us in the work it is our purpose to do. 

A promise was long ago given unto Abram ; and there, 
where he received the promise, he built an altar unto the 
Lord. 

But he was called thence unto a new place. He carried 
the promise in his heart thither ; and there he built an 
altar unto the Lord. 

As did he, so now do we. Amen. 



254 



MID-LIFE MEMOEABILIA 



PART II 



e. Close of the Washington Ministry . — My ministry. as 
the regular pastor of the Washington All Souls Church 
did not last quite three years : — altogether I had spent 
about four years as its minister. 

The events of those years are, in large part, of public 
record, and need no detailed repetition here. 

The Society enjoyed much prosperity ; its Sunday 
services were continuously exceptionally popular ; its 
membership became not only large, but was composed 
of some of the most notable men and w 7 omen in the official, 
the literary, the scientific and the social circles of the 
Capital City. Apparently, I had been given a position as 
important in its opportunities as any that a minister of 
Christianity could wish for. And, soon, a most gratifying 
success for both minister and people, as a Christian Church, 
seemed to be assured. 

I thought of my pastorate then as a charge that I might 
faithfully and happily care for until, possibly, old age 
would justify me in transferring it to some other fortunate 
servant of our inspiring, beneficent faith. 

But there gradually developed, unknown however to 
the parish and really known by but a very few persons, 
a sequence of events wholly separate from any personal 
relationships I bore ; which, however, any one who is 
acquainted with my judgments of what would be allowable 
in the matter in question w r ould understand, could not be 
other to me than seriously disturbing, since, necessarily, 
under the circumstances, I was officially connected with it. 
The burden which I consequently carried, I decided, for 
the sake of the general welfare of the Society, to bear in 
silence unless necessity should compel me to " speak out." 

This period of serious solicitude lasted for nearly a year 



1880 



CLOSE OF WASHINGTON MINISTRY 



255 



and a half, when, by a bit of good fortune, it was brought 
to a close, and a cleared way lay open for my further 
ministry. 

But, at the time, I was far from well physically, and I 
needed rest. Some of the leading members of the Society 
when I spoke to them privately of handing in a resigna- 
tion of my pastorate offered to procure for me an extended 
vacation. I declined the offer. I thought it would be 
better for both myself and the parish that a new minister 
should be secured. Consequently, on May 16th 1880, I 
read to the members of the Church the following letter, 
published the next day. 

II. 

LETTER OF RESIGNATION, 

"The following is the text of the letter read by the pastor 
to the members of All Souls Church on Sunday, resigning 
his charge 

Washington, D.C., May 16th, 1880, 
To the Members of All Souls Glutrch : 

Dear Friends : More than three years ago (March 
18th, 1877) I became your minister. On the 1st day of 
July of the same year I was invited to the permanent 
pastorate of this church, the call to take effect on the 
second Sunday of the following September. After much 
hesitation I accepted the invitation, continued my work 
among you, and, in the latter part of the January suc- 
ceeding, was formally inducted into my office. 

To-day I resign the charge then committed to my care, 
my resignation to take effect at about the end of my 
official year, the 30th day of September next. 

Several reasons lead me to this act ; prominent among 
them is my desire for a much-needed rest. I took charge 
of this society when its place of worship was the old church 
at the corner of Sixth and D streets. The regular congre- 



256 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



gation was then quite small; the church membership 
almost wholly without organization. For some time the 
only ministry you had had w 7 as that of visiting clergymen 
having no connection with you other than that secured by 
the Sunday services — a ministry which, however it may 
upon occasion have attracted the general public, had been, 
as it always must be, injurious to your best interests as a 
church . 

My first duty to you, therefore, seemed to be to thorough- 
ly organize the society and to try to make the organization 
self-dependent. The result was that on June 4th, 1877, 
you adopted the constitution we now have, by which the 
"First Unitarian Church " of Washington was reorganized 
as " All Souls Church." It required no small effort to make 
the new constitution operative in its various relations : but 
gradually this was accomplished, and its advantages 
became apparent. By the division of labor it required and 
its distribution of responsibilities, the interest in church 
work of a largely increased number of persons was aroused 
and sustained. Through the activity of the several subor- 
dinate organizations which the constitution brought into 
being the energy and aims of our growing church were 
considerably extended and multiplied. 

And during my temporary ministry the project for the 
building of a new church edifice occupied my thoughts as 
it did yours. I followed the progress of the negotiations 
of our officers with the officers of the American Unitarian 
Association with the deepest interest. I turned over the 
„ first spadeful of earth in preparing for the foundation of 
the new building. I made the address called for in the 
ceremony at the laying of the corner-stone, and when, in 
the presence of the hundreds of our fellow believers, who 
had gathered here from all parts of our country to rejoice 
with us and to bid us God-speed, we dedicated this beauti- 
ful temple " to the one God, for the service of Man, in the 
faith of Jesus Christ," I read with them and you a special 
service of dedication. 

As your pastor installed, I became only the more closely 
identified with and interested in everything that appertained 
to the welfare of our church. I gave to it an exclusive 



1880 



LETTER. OF RESIGNATION 



•257 



service and have watched its career with an unusual degree of 
solicitude. My most earnest hope and effort have been for 
its prosperity — especially for its success as a representative 
exponent of Liberal Christian faith and life in this the 
Capital City of our nation. 

With peculiar anxiety, as some of you know, have I 
awaited the day that has just come- — this day when we 
can say with an unqualified meaning to our words that we 
at last have a house of worship free from debt. Our 
church was dedicated with the proclamation that it was 
thus free, but at the same time we knew ourselves to be 
under a moral obligation to the extent of several thousands 
of dollars to those who had contributed the sum necessary 
to complete the amount required of this society by the 
Unitarian denomination before it would transfer its own 
contribution for the building of the new church to our 
hands. One of our special endeavors has been to meet 
this obligation, and I have been glad to see that with each 
successive year through our increased financial prosperity 
this indebtedness has grown smaller, and now happily, 
besides, the one great possible embarrassment to your 
welfare, and the chief source of my anxiety, has been 
removed by the sale, just consummated, of the old church 
property. Thus are we as a church finally, in every sense 
of the word, free from debt. 

To-day, then, All Souls Church, well organized ; with a 
a large membership ; with a regular attendance increased 
many fold ; with an ample income ; with the respect and 
confidence of this community ; and as possessor of one 
of the most beautiful houses of worship in the city, has 
before it a future clear and free. I bid you with all my 
heart God-speed on your way, and with all my heart I 
pray that the past has been only a promise of the better 
time to come. 

But, for the reason I have given, that I wish to take a 
much-needed rest from the labor and the care I have 
borne here, I think it wise to place herewith in your hands 
my resignation of the office I have held during these three 
eventful years. 

Clay MacCauley." 



258 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



Naturally there was much surprise and questioning in 
the Society, leading to some public comment in newspapers, 
over my letter of resignation. This note appearing in the 
Christian Begister summarizes the facts, as far as they were 
known to the public. 

" Rev. Clay MacCauley's resignation of the pastorate 
of the Unitarian Church of Washington was offered May 
16th, to take effect on the 30th of September. After three 
years of peculiarly exhausting work, Mr. MacCauley 
finds himself much worn down and in pressing need 
of a period of rest. His pastorate covers a period of great 
interest in the history of the parish, for whose reorganization 
and training to usefulness he has labored indefatigably 
and with success. Three years ago the society was small 
and divided, occupying the quite ineligible old building. 
It is now established, with a large constituency, in the 
new and elegant edifice w T hich the American Unitarian 
Association helped to erect ; and with no debt, an ample 
income, and a people who have a mind to the work, its 
past should indeed be what Mr. MacCauley's letter of 
resignation so heartily wishes, "only a promise of the 
better time to come." With improving health and a 
harvest of experience, may this prayer for the people 
come back in rich answer to himself.' ' 

The consequent official action of the parish came within 
the week following, during which time I was earnestly 
urged by several of the most influential members of the 
Society to withdraw my letter of resignation. A letter ask- 
ing me not to resign was put into circulation. I requested 
that it be not carried farther. And the Secretary of the 
American Unitarian Association, who was familiar with 
the course of events, wrote :« — 

" I have been much concerned by the word you gave 
me. I have hoped that you will hold on. I can not think 
of the person who can go to Washington and carry all as 
satisfactorily as yourself Few have the tact and 



1880 CONCERNING THIS RESIGNATION 259 



breadth, and gentlemanly bearing and conciliatory spirit 

of yourself In short, and in a word, I do 

earnestly hope you will take a cheerful view of affairs, 
and, as Sumner said to Stanton, ' Stick' 99 

But I still believed in my decision as wisely made. The 
Church returned an answer to my letter : it is given in the 
following newspaper notice. 

" ALL SOULS CHURCH PASTORATE. 

There was a large turn out of the members of All Souls 
Church last night in the chapel, to consider the resignation 
of the pastor, Rev. Clay 4 MacCauley, tendered last week. 
Mr. George P. Clarke was elected chairman and Mr. 
W. P. Dunwoody acted as secretary. On motion of Mr. 
Scott Smith the resignation was accepted, to take effect 
September 15. Mr. Smith also offered the following 
resolution, which was adopted unanimously : 

Resolved, That leave of absence be granted our pastor 
from the 15th of June until the 15th of September. 

Hon Horace Davis offered the following, which was 
unanimously adopted : 

Whereas, Our pastor, Eev. Clay MacCanley, desiring 
a rest from his arduous labors, has resigned his pastorate, 
and 

Whereas, His constant and faithful labor has 
strengthened and cemented the Society, his zeal in the 
cause of the Church and his tender sympathy with those in 
trial and affliction have endeared him to us ; therefore 

Resolved, That we regret the necessity that has 
compelled Mr. MacCauley to resign his pastorate, and 
shall follow him with our sincere good wishes to whatever 
field of labor he shall be called to enter. 

The meeting then adjourned." 

g. Concerning the Resignation of my Washington 
Pastorate. — Many friends in Washington and elsewhere 
were puzzled over the giving up of my ministry to All 
Souls Church. Some of them pronounced it an " unwise," 



260 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



and other some, a ' 'precipitate" ending to what had had a 
most cheering and successful beginning and progress. The 
pastorate had been accompanied by plentiful evidences of 
present and prospective usefulness. And these friends knew 
no good reason for my leaving a position which gave, and 
promised, so much for both me and the Church. 

I do not intend, at this far remove from those disturbing 
days, to tell in full the story of the happenings that induced 
me to relinquish the office. But, with the writing of these 
Memories," it has seemed to me to be especially opport- 
une, — even to be a matter of duty now, — to say enough 
to remove whatever misunderstanding there may be among 
my friends about what I did then. 

Primarily, I have to say that, in the course of the events 
which preceded my resignation, I was actuated by the 
same imperative personal factor which directed me in the 
contest in my College class over the election of its Orator, 
and which also guided me in the mental turmoil aroused 
during my Morrison ministry. As I have said, I yield per- 
sonal wishes, that are merely wishes, almost too easily, 
when they are contrary to the wishes of others : but 
where what I believe to be a judgment of conscience, is at 
stake, I am possibly, so it has been said, "over obstinate " 
in its behalf. 

Because of this fact, however, let it not be thought that 
I am also censorious towards those who differ with me ; or 
that I am disposed to question the sincerity of the motives of 
others whom I may be compelled to oppose. I am mere- 
ly stating the fact which happens to be imperative in the 
regulation of my own acts. 

Now, in reference to what happened in Washington 
leading up to my resignation, I have in mind, in what 



1880 



CONCERNING THIS RESIGNATION 



261 



I say of it, only my own convictions as to what it 
was at the time right to do. I have never ventured to 
interpret the motives of any of the persons with whom I 
was then associated. 

As a matter of self-interpretation only ; merely as 
making clear the way over w 7 hich I w 7 ent to the time when 
I relinguished my office, I make the statement that here 
follows. ' 

As all know, much prominence was given throughout 
the months of the building, and at the dedication of the 
new Washington Church, to the requirement of the 
American Unitarian Association that the edifice should be 
constructed and devoted to its uses, wholly free from debt. 

This condition was, at the outset, embodied in the Sara- 
toga Conference resolutions. I was entrusted by the As- 
sociation, under this condition, with the first payment of 
its contribution to the Building Committee. Then, at the 
sale of the pews when the new r Church was ready for use, 
the Chairman of the Committee announced that "the 
American Unitarian Association had contributed its liberal 
sum on condition that ' there should not be a dollar of 
debt against the Church/ ' There will be none* said 
the Chairman. 

Further, in an authoritative description of the de- 
dicatory exercises was this declaration : " Unquestion- 
ably the mo3t striking feature about the new Church 
is this, it is paid for ; an advance having been made of 
the amount necessary to make up the sum total, the old 
Church property as yet unsold having been taken as 
security for the money, advanced," It was the jubilant 
satisfaction of us all that we took possession of All Souls 



262 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



Church as our sanctuary entirely freed from any debt 
arising from its cost. 

But, as time passed, a sequence of happenings, which no 
one I think would say are here incorrectly recounted, came 
to pass. There was a long, and wholly unexpected delay ; 
and then a serious uncertainty, concerning a promised sale 
of the old Church property on D Street. Thereupon, a 
difference in judgment ere long arose between interested 
persons and myself as to what should be done in case the 
promise that had been made for the purchase of the old 
Church could not be kept by the proposed purchasers. The 
judgment favored by these friends was almost diametrically 
opposed to that which I felt compelled to make. I readily 
grant that they thought their opinion to be right ; 
or, that at least it was, all things considered, justifiable. 
I could not agree with them. And moreover, because of a 
specific official responsibility, I felt compelled to put a series of 
partinent questions to the American Unitarian Association, 
whose interests were involved in the issue. 

The matter came under serious discussion as early as 
the spring of 1879, not much more than a year after my 
installation. An answer from the Secretary of the Asso- 
ciation, Eev. Rush E. Shippen, was received April 24th, 
1879. It read 

"Certainly you are right in assuming that the new 
Church is in no wise to be burdened with any affairs of the 
old one. Whoever managed matters and furnished the 
money for the new one took all that risk and responsi- 
bility. And the congregation and the present officers are 
not bound to know anything about it." 

Throughout the year following, this difference between 

me and others who were immediately interested, all of 

whom had been closely related friendSj — men whose 



18S0 



CONCERNING THIS RESIGNATION 



263 



friendship I sincerely desired to keep, and always, at 
that time and afterwards, sought to keep, — contin- 
ued. I said nothing of the disagreement, except in 
confidence to a very few intimate and prudent friends ; 
altogether the facts were kept within the small group of 
persons directly interested. 

By good fortune I was able to delay the proposed 
action, pending the public legal controversy then 
being carried on over the sale of the old Church. So, 
because, consequently, nothing decisive was done, the 
general life of our Church continued in its successful and 
peaceful growth. The Society was in no way disturbed 
by the question which troubled me and my friends. 

What finally occurred is noted in my " Letter of 
Resignation.'' The sale of the old Church was finally, 
though with much difficulty, consummated, and thereby 
the conditions upon which the Unitarian Churches of 
America had made their contribution to the new building 
were finally and fully met, in accordance with their origi- 
nal intent. 

I have now, I think, told all that is really essential for 
my friends to know of the series of events which preceded 
my resignation, in order that they may understand why I 
was prompted to the decision I made. 

But why, it may be asked, did this difference in judg- 
ment with some friends, who were interested in the finances 
of the Church, bring about my resignation ? The 
members of the Church, almost throughout, had no know- 
ledge of the question at issue ; and my personal and official 
relations with the Society were thoroughly harmonious. 

I can best reply that, in all probability, it would have 
been well,— if bygones could have been made bygones all 



264 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PART II 



around, — for me to have laid hold of the new opportunities 
which had come with the delivery of the Church from the 
possible encumbrance that had threatened it ; — to " thank 
God ; take courage, and go forward " in the way that had 
been made clear. At the time, however, I believed it 
would be better, all things considered for me to close my 
ministry there. I had "stood by " from " a day of very 
small things," to that of an assured success ; and I could, 
with an easy conscience, transfer my office to another 
whose ministry would be free from any embarrassment that 
might possibly remain because of unhappy memories, per- 
sisting among some of those to whom my services had been 
given. Besides, it was fact then that I was not w 7 ell. 
My experiences with a serious illness during the next three 
years showed that I needed the mental and emotional 
relaxation I thereafter secured. 

But whether my resignation was wisely made or not, 
is not a matter of consequence now. I acted then as my 
best judgment led me ; deciding to continue my life work 
in new relations and elsewhere. 



1SS0 



265 



CHAPTER SECOND 
OF THE DECADE, 1880-1889. 
1. 

With the Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian 
Institution, 1880-1884. 

After the closing of the Washington pastorate my com- 
manding need, under the circumstances, was to recover 
normal health of both body and mind. 

Some friends, thinking that travel with an interesting oc- 
cupation apart from my profession, would bring about the 
desired restoration arranged to have me undertake special 
service for the Bureau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian 
Institution. I was given, also, supervision of the pending 
Census of the Indians living east of the Mississippi River, 
and directed to enquire particularly into the condition, 
manners and customs, and other interests of the Florida 
Seminole. In the autumn of 1880, I undertook this 
pleasant travelling commission, beginning with the Indians 
on the Minnesota and Wisconsin Reservations ; spending 
some time with the Cherokee living among the mountains 
of North Carolina ; ending my service in the w T inter and 
spring of 1881, after a long " camping out g " among 
the Seminole, who were known to be settled somewhere on 
the borders of the Everglades and in the Big Cypress 
Swamp, and the Kissimmee Valley of Lower Florida. 

a. Visit to the Menomenee of Wisconsin. — Throughout 



266 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



these visits to the Indian settlements I met with many 
most entertaining and instructive experiences. Among the 
Menomenee of Wisconsin, for instance, I happened to have 
timed my arrival with the festival gathering of a strange 
and, just then, much talked of religious organization, whose 
membership, so I was told, extended widely among the 
tribes of the North west, even as far away as Montana. 

Some years later, March 9th, 1893, I delivered an 
address before a " Missions Conference" in Tokyo, Japan, 
using this novelty in religious expression to illustrate a 
theory which 1 held as to the origin of the Forms of 
Religion generally. It may interest my friends to read of 
what I saw among the Menomenee, and of what I 
thought on this theme : — 

i. 

The Dreamers among the North American 
Indians, as Illustrative of the Ori- 
gin of Forms of Religion. 

About twelve years ago, I became acquainted with an 
interesting religious movement then in progress among 
the Menomenee of Wisconsin. I styled it in a report to 
Washington, written at the time, " a peculiar fanaticism, 
which has been brought to the tribe from the Far West, 
w 7 here it had its origin in the visions of a woman of the 
Sioux." 

The followers of the new religion were known as " The 
Dreamers." A large part of the tribe had been already 
included among them, and their number was rapidly in- 
creasing. While at the reservation, I took copious notes of 
the movement. Recently, in a conversation with the honor- 
ed president of this Conference (Dr. Greene) and one of our 
members, the latter happened to speak of a religious move- 
ment, known as Te?i-ri-kyo, which is now securing a re- 
markable diffusion among the lower classes of the people 



s 



1S80 THE AMERICAN INDIAN " DREAMERS " 267 

of this country, in Shikoku and in other districts of South 
Central Japan. What Dr. Knox said of the Ten-ri-kyo. 
revived in memory, "The Dreamers." Some facts about the 
Japanese devotees recalling certain characteristics of the 
Indian religionists, these notes, with some suggested ob- 
servations may not be without interest here, and possibly 
will not be without use. To begin with, let me tell you 
the story of " The Dreamers." 

WHO ARE THE DREAMERS ? 

One afternoon of the American " Indian Summer " in 
the year 1880, I reached the agency house at Keshena, 
Wisconsin, and soon afterwards was " in council " with 
four of the principal men of the Menomenee tribe. I let 
it be known that I was an authorized agent of the " Great 
Father" at Washington, and that I wished to learn some- 
thing about their numbers, and of their ways of living. 
Especially, I tried to tell them, I should like to know how 
they governed themselves as a tribe ; how they were re- 
lated to one another in their kinships ; what their totems 
were ; what they thought of the world and of the sky ; 
what they believed of their origin, of life, of sickness and of 
death and other strange happenings ; about all such things 
I told them I should like to learn whatever they would 
teach me. 

For some time after the interpreter had repeated this 
speech, my auditors were silent. At length an old man, 
Metchikeni by name, chief spokesman for the party, stood 
up and with great dignity answered : " We are glad 
to see our friend, and to hear kind words from the Great 
Father. We shall be happy to tell our friend and the 
Great Father all we can of these things." After a con- 
siderable ' pause, he continued: " To-morrow we dance. 
Would our friend like to see our dance ? It will be Sunday, 
but our dance is a way we have of going to the Great 
Spirit, and we like to have it on the white man's good 
day." "I shall be glad to be with you," I answered. 
" But," the old man cautioned me, " I shall not look the 
same as I do now. I shall be painted. I shall wear the 
clothes of my fathers. These young men will be painted 



268 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PART II 



too ; they will have many feathers and bells ; and there 
will be a great dram and much noise. Will our friend 
come?" "Yes, I shall be happy to be with you," I 
answered. " Well, we shall be glad to see our friend." 
To this greeting the old man's companions added a grave 
but kindly " how ! how ! " in assent. 

What further Metchikeni said does not concern my 
story. Not long afterwards the " council " dissolved, and 
the old man having borrowed a national flag from the 
reservation agent, the Indians returned to their lodges. 
In the evening, the agent told me that he had heard a 
good deal of this dance. It had puzzled him not a little. 
It had been brought into the Reservation, he had learned, by 
runners who had been far to the West, in the last winter, 
and it had been eagerly taken hold of by most of the men 
and women who had hitherto clung to native traditions 
and customs. " A sharp division among the members of 
the tribe has been brought about by it," said Mr. Stevens. 
" Its active opponents are our Roman Catholics. They 
say that these people fully believe they are yet to possess 
this whole country. I am told that they are part of a league 
which is forming among all the Indians of the North-west. 
This league when the good opportunity comes, is to rise 
against and to destroy the white man. But I see no 
good reason for the charge," added the agent. " As far 
as I can judge, their enemies are trying to put the 
Dreamers under suspicion. I do not understand them, but 
they seem to be caught by a genuine religious enthusiasm. 
Certainly they are peaceable, temperate, and industrious ; 
and, from all I can learn, they wish to;do the best they 
know how.' 

THE DANCE OF "THE DREAMERS." 

The next morning, Mr. Stevens and I started for the 
place of the dance. It was miles away, in the depths of 
the forest. I think that we are the only white men, who 
until then had had the privilege of being invited to look 
upon the sacred ceremony. For quite a distance no sound 
but the rattle of our wagon broke the profound silence of 
the way. At length, however, from far off, we began to 



1880 THE AMERICAN INDIAN " DREAMERS " 269 

hear the regular beating of a deep-toned drum, and soon 
afterwards, faintly, the shouts of excited men. 

These sounds grew louder as we went farther ; then 
suddenly ceased. Again there was profound silence. 

At last, as we reached the top of a low hill, suddenly a 
most strange scene was disclosed. Almost weirdly pic- 
turesque, through its novelty, to eyes such as ours, a more 
fascinating sight could hardly be fancied. A large oval 
clearing, shut in by the primeval forest of the north, whose 
gold, scarlet, and green foliage was softened by the hazy 
air, opened to our path. In the centre of this imposing 
amphitheatre were gathered the " Dreamers," in the midst 
of the celebration of their peculiar rites. For some minutes, 
our presence unnoticed, we looked down upon the unique 
tableau. There, gathered in a wide, enclosed circle, were 
nearly a hundred men and women, all queerly attired ; 
their grouping gay with motley color. At the moment of 
our arrival the whole assemblage was sitting . motionless, 
listening to an address by a tall, graceful speaker. The 
speaker's words, from far off scarcely heard by us, were 
the only break in the lonely hush of the place. At length 
we approached more closely the sacred circle. Our coming 
was hardly observed ; at least the course of the ceremonies 
was not in the slightest changed with our presence. 

From a good position I made mental note of all I could 
see and hear. The circle was open to the west. Over 
this entrance three American flags were pendant. In the 
centre of the circle was suspended, horizontally, a huge flat 
drum, around which stood, statue-like, nine fantastically 
dressed drummers, each holding vertically at his side, his 
club of office. Just back of these men, sat, on a circle of 
straw and evergreen twigs, a line of women, whose bodies 
were bowed deeply forward ; whose heads were enveloped 
in bright red blankets. Around the circumference of the 
enclosure were ranged in distinctly marked sections a 
large number of men, Directly at the south, and evidently 
highest among servitors, a little within the outermost circle, 
was a sombre-faced, middle-aged man, apparently guardian 
of a large pile of smoking tobacco, and of a long, flat- 
stemmed, red-stone pipe of exceptional size, which lay 



270 



MID-LIFE MEMOEABILIA PART II 



across his knees. On the curve, westward from the tobacco 
guard, was a line of grotesquely painted and elaborately, 
even superabundantly, decorated men, chiefs, or other 
leaders of the order. 1 thought I discovered my host, old 
Metchikeni, in this group. As a finish to this section, sat, 
a little inward, another pipe bearer and guard of a second 
tobacco heap. Still farther westward on the circle was placed 
a number of men, evidently tenants of various special offices, 
warlike looking " braves," some of them, armed with clubs 
of various shapes, wands, and other symbols of office, all 
painted, beaded, feathered, and oddly clothed, displaying 
colors like the mosaics of a kaleidoscope. From the west, 
through the north to the east, on the circle's edge was what 
I judged to be the vulgus of the order, the many initiated, 
but not office-bearing, followers of the faith. Outside the 
enclosure to the west, on each side of a path leading to the 
flag-covered entrance, sat a number of persons, chiefly 
women, in ordinary, every day garments. These, I had 
afterwards some reason to suppose, were not members of 
the order, but were servants, and novices on the way to 
reception among the initated ones. For some time all these 
people sat listening, silent and motionless, to their speaker's 
earnest address. 

Of course, we could not understand what was said, yet I 
could see that the speaker was confident, and that his 
words were impressive. Even his bizarre costume, which 
was a combination of the garments of savagery and civili- 
zation, did not destroy the dignity and impressiveness of 
his oration. He wore a black cloth frock-coat and trousers- 
like leggins, down whose outer seams w r ere broad, black, 
embroidered flaps Bright red and yellow handkerchiefs, 
hung from his right shoulder. Bound around his legs just 
below the knees were more gaudily colored articles of the 
same kind. A string of shells was hung, as though it were 
an amulet, about his neck ; long silver rings dragged down 
his ears ; a long tufted rod stood up straight from the back 
of his neck ; fancifully beaded moccasins clothed his feet, 
and in his hand was a gaily decorated wand with which 
every now and then he emphasized his speech. 

When the address closed, the speaker went to his seat. 



1S80 



THE AMERICAN INDIAN " DREAMERS " 



271 



A few moments of silence ensued. Then, from the men 
about the drum, at a high but not unmusical pitch, came 
a singing voice, repeating the strain, " lidi-yd hdi-yd-hu, 
hdi-yd" over and over again, which other voices soon 
joined, dominant among them being the shrill treble of the 
women encircling the drum. In a short time the singing 
was accompanied by gentle blows on the drum, which 
gradually became heavier and more violent. The drum- 
beating seemingly was the signal for all those who sat 
round the circumference of the circle to rise and advance, 
which they did by very short steps, dancing, towards the 
centre. Moment by moment the dancing grew more 
vigorous. Through all the extravagance which followed, 
the utmost gravity of countenance was preserved, and, not- 
withstanding much that to us approached the ridiculous, 
conscious dignity, too. 

The dance slowly changed from vigor, to vehemence, 
and even into violence of action. 

Symbolic gestures, movements, and groupings, but under 
no one leadership apparently, made up the ceremony. 
The " braves " of the second section were especially notice- 
able. Some of these, loaded with sleigh bells and much 
jangling metal, became almost frenzied in their excitement. 

Finally, at a signal, a sudden hush fell upon the 
devotees. All resumed their seats ; the music ceased ; the 
ceremony closing with a solo dance in his place by the 
leader of the drum corps, the same person by whom the 
ceremony had been begun. 

After another short address, a general interchange of 
personal possessions took place. Each man with his neigh- 
bor gave and received something. Handkerchiefs, blankets, 
strings of beads, head-dresses of feathers and skins, shawls, 
bits of ornament, of tin, silver and copper, bracelets, arm- 
lets, and even pieces of the body's clothing were passed 
from one to another in solemn silence. 

This reciprocal service rendered, quite an impressive rite 
followed. The two pipe bearers with reverent deliberation 
filled their pipes from the tobacco heaps before them and 
laid upon them live coals. Holding the pipe-bowls in 
both hands over their heads, the stems horizontal, they 



272 



MID-LIFE MEMOEABILIA PAKT II 



swayed the pipes with a graceful sweeping motion, from 
the east, through the south, westwards. Then pointing the 
steins downwards and towards the sky, the celebrants 
offered the pipes to all the dancers, beginning each with 
the first man in the group before him. As a participant 
received the pipe, he raised it, stem upward, to the sky, 
and then reverently drew from it two or three whiffs of 
smoke. The sacred smoking was accompanied by a subdued 
drumming and song. Several short speeches were made 
after this ceremony. The only information I could get at 
the time of what was being done, I received from a half- 
breed Indian who happened to come near me. In answer 
to my question concerning a speaker, he said, " He tell 
them to be good and keep friends with white man. He 
say, musn't dance too much. Must go to work as soon as 
dance is done/' 

These speeches over, the chiefs and headmen made 
a very decorous, slow dancing circuit of the sacred 
ground. Thereupon followed a graphic, pantomimic 
ceremony by " the braves." In signs they loaded and 
fired off guns ; they appeared to hunt as though for game ; 
they fled as if in retreat ; then subsided for a while into 
dreamy passivity. Eousing themselves from that, they 
became as if frantic ; yelling, whooping with savage-like 
cries, joined gradually by all the others of the league, until 
the circle was wild with seemingly demoniac fury. 

At the height of this frenzy a dog leaped over the barrier 
into the midst of the excited dancers. In an instant the 
miserable beast was killed. "Why did he do that?" I 
asked of the half-breed. " Kill any dog, or cow, or horse, 
or chicken, that goes in there," was the answer. " Would 
they! kill a man ? No ; they would throw him down, 
cover him all over with blankets and lay him at the gate, 
and wouldn't mind stepping on him ; and he would have 
to stay there till dance was done." This tumultuous rite 
carried all, apparently, to the limit of endurance. At last 
the excitement seemed to wear itself out, and the exhausted 
dancers went to their places for rest. 

The meridian sun marked the time for dinner. The 
meal was served in the circle, from fires burning near by. 



1880 THE AMERICAN INDIAN " DREAMERS " 273 



It was taken to the entrance of the sacred place by the 
outer servants,— a steaming olla podrida in pans, kettles, 
plates, and cups of many shapes, sizes, and kinds. This 
incongruous collection was massed in the south. What 
seemed to be the asking of a divine blessing upon the food, 
then occurred. The head men encircled the kettles and 
platters, moving rhythmically but very slowly around 
them, apparently gathering savour from the food, offering 
it towards the sky, and using yet other expressive symbols. 

This ceremony continued so long that before it was finish- 
ed all the food had ceased to steam and had grown cold and 
stiff. Full half an hour had passed before the eating 
began. But the meal was then by no means continued 
and finished in quiet. Several times, one or another of 
the musicians, perhaps seeing a vision, or hearing a "divine 
call," rushed suddenly to the drum and struck it, whereupon 
every one dropped cup or platter, and for a few moments 
gave himself to shouting and the dance. Not long after 
this, having seen all we cared to see, ignorant of both 
language and sign, the agent and I left the ground and 
turned our faces homeward. " The Dreamers " continued 
their rites until midnight. 

The next day I was visited by about thirty members of 
the tribe, who were evidently deeply hostile to the "Dream- 
ers," and who, hearing that I had seen the dance, wished 
to assure me that they had had nothing whatever to do 
with the " evil thing/* 11 It is carrying the tribe back- 
ward," said Akwinimmi, "and that is why I have 
nothing to do with it." To speak of this episode at length, 
however, would lead us too far afield. 

THE DANCE INTERPRETED AND DOCTRINE STATED. 

I have told of the " Dreamers " just as I saw them. The 
members of the league were evidently thoroughly, even 
fanatically, in earnest. That was clear. But what did 
they believe ; what did they teach ; what w T as their aim ? 
I could not tell, and many had assured me they meant ill. 
The day following, I therefore sent for Metchikeni to inter- 
pret for me what I had seen. I already knew this much, 
that Metchikeni bore an exemplary character, and that 



274 



MID-LIFE MEMOBABILTA PABT II 



Akwinimmi, once chief of the tribe, had been deposed for 
murder, and was seeking to degrade the present chief, 
Niopet, who was also one of the " Dreamers." 

Here is the interpretation of the "Dreamers'" ceremonies 
and a statement of their doctrines, as Metchikeni gave them 
to me. " I hear much evil about you," I said, after greet- 
ings had passed." I must know the truth. Tell me, so 
that I can tell the Great Father only what is true." " If 
I thought that our dance were a step backward, I would 
have nothing to do with it ; neither would Niopet," began 
the answer. "We are dressed in the old dress of our 
fathers, and we sing and dance ; but I have been in the 
theatre in Washington and have seen the white men do 
about the same things, with no one to blame them. These 
things are not necessary I know, and by-and-by we may 
drop them. We do not take the young men from their 
work. We dance the dance only six times in the year. 
You ask me who we are. I will tell you the truth. 

Not many years ago, in the West, when some Indians 
were at war," (my informant referred, I think, to the Sioux 
and Crows), "while they were fighting, a woman fled 
from them to save her life. As she ran she lost her way, 
and fell into the water of a river. But she did not die. 
She lay in the water asleep, many days ; eight days and 
nights. All this time she dreamed, and saw wonderful 
sights of beauty and peace. At the end of eight clays she 
heard a voice calling to her to rise up. Then some power 
lifted her out of the water and made her well and strong. 
She knew that the Great Spirit had brought her back to 
the world. And this the Great Spirit told her : ' Go at 
once to your people and tell them to stop their war, and 
to become friends with one another and with the white 
man. They will hear you and will believe you ; and you 
and they must spread my words among all Indians. Do 
you see the sky, how it is round/ continued the divine 
voice. 'Go, then, and tell your people to make a circle on the 
ground, just like the round sky. Call that place holy ground. 
Go there, and with a big drum in the centre, sing and 
dance and pray to me, and speak my words. 

And when you speak, say always these things : — " You 



1880 THE AMERICAN INDIAN " DREAMERS " 275 



are all children of one Father and are brothers. You 
must live in peace with one another. You must not 
drink intoxicating drink. You must always speak the 
truth. If you are struck, you must count the blow 
as nothing and not strike back again. Do these things, 
and all Indians and white men will soon be pro- 
sperous and at peace and happy. You will all have 
one heart/ " " Now," asserted Metchikeni, " that is what 
our dance is for. We teach these words of the Great 
Spirit. You saw a sick girl carried into our holy place. 
She was carried there, that there we might pray to the 
Great Spirit to make her well. "We have no medicine 
dance. We hope, with our dance, to break up by-and-by 
the old medicine dance, and all such things. So we teach. 7 

" But what is the meaning of the many things you do 
in your dance ?" I inquired. " I may tell you almost 
all," be answered. " You saw the flag above us. That is 
to show that we are friends of the Great Father. You 
saw some men dancing and acting as though they were 
firing off guns, hunting, and running hard. They show 
that some of us helped the Great Father in the big war 
and are ready to help him again in the same way. You 
saw us point the pipe to the sky and to the earth. That 
shows that we worship the Great Spirit in the sky and 
honor our Mother the Earth ; for we all came from the 
ground. We lifted our hands to the sky ; that w T as for 
prayer. We held out our hands, palms upward ; that 
was to receive the answers to our prayers. We scattered 
from our hands to the ground ; that was to show that we 
give what we receive. You saw us all give presents to 
one another ; that was to show that we are brothers, and 
that brothers must help brothers." " But why did you do 
so cruel a thing as kill the dog ? " " Our friend may not 
understand. But that ground is holy while we are there 
with the Great Spirit, and the dog is not clean. He may 
not live if he comes onto the ground. We have three 
watch-men to keep all such things away, but sometimes 
they will get in, and then there is no help for them. 

If our friend could only have understood our speeches 
he would know that we are trying to do well. We do 



276 



MID-LIFE MEMOBABILIA PABT II 



not take the young men from their work. We try to help 
them to work better. If I had a flag of my own, I should 
want to have painted on it, a picture of a plough and 
over that, my totem, the eagle. This flag I should like to 
see always waving over our dance. I want all my 
children to go to school to learn just what white men 
know." 

Such was, in substance, the old man's address to me, 
whom he looked upon as delegated with especial authority 
from Washington. He seemed wholly in earnest and 
truthful. His closing words were : " We are doing the 
best we can. I am sorry that tire re are some here who 
wish to do us harm and would make trouble for us if they 
could. ,, 

This is my story of " The Dreamers." Of course I do 
not know that the story tells the whole truth about them. 
I repeat it just as I learned it ; and this account is, so far as 
I know, the first publication of the doings and doctrines of 
the organization. But I have no good reason to doubt 
what I heard. That which I tell of the things I saw is 
fact ; the rest must go for what the investigations of others 
may prove it to be worth. My general conclusion 
however is, that " The Dreamers," if the Menomenee 
branch of the league may be accepted as representative, are 
religious enthusiasts, somewhat fanatic in their enthusiasm, 
devoted to a strange admixture of pagan ritual, monolatry, 
or degenerate Christian theology, and Christian ethics. 

During the twelve years which have passed since I had 
this interesting experience I have heard nothing positive 
of these people. But the rumors which a few years ago 
were current in the American newspapers concerning 
suspected dances among the Indians of some far Western 
States in connection with a sc-called " Messiah " craze, 
may have been occasioned by misunderstandings of, or 
aberrations in, remote branches of the league. Once, 
when I saw the name " Dreamers" in an army officer's 
statement concerning the " Messiah " fanatics, I felt quite 
confident that the dancers referred to were more or less 
closely related to the organization which had been started 
by the Sioux prophetess. Twelve years ago the league 



1880 THE AMERICAN INDIAN u DREAMERS 277 



had already extended far, east, west, and south, from the 
Dakota reservations. In all probability the movement 
has by no means yet spent its force. Privileged inquirers 
would, I think, find it to-day in one or another form, 
among all the Indian tribes living between the Great 
Lakes and the Rocky Mountains. 

HOW DO " THE DREAMERS" ILLUSTRATE THE 
ORIGIN OF FORMS OF RELIGION? 

The question now may arise, " Of what use to us of this 
Conference is this story ?" Aside from its value as an enter- 
taining story of American Indian life, to me it has beaome 
a suggestive illustration of the manner in which Forms of 
Religion often come into being and secure widespread ac- 
ceptance. Especially do I see in the reputed origin and 
career of the " Dreamers " an excellent example, among 
many in history, of the emergence of hidden streams of in- 
fluence sent out by a great historic faith, and their flow, as 
freshly sprung fountains, in remote channels. "What I heard 
of the Ten-ri kgo brought the "Dreamers" to mind, because 
the two are apparently alike in this ; — each owes its ex- 
istence to a woman,— to a prophetess professedly endowed 
with miraculous vision and speaking under proclaimed 
original inspiration. They are alike also in that both these 
women, the accepted teacher of the Ten-ri kyo and she of 
the Sioux, evidently were at some time, somehow, under 
the influence of Christianity ; and in their acts of prophetic 
assumption, consciously or not, have appropriated bits of 
Christian theology and of Christian ethical ideals, as divine 
messages especially entrusted to them for the sake of man- 
kind. In other words, if what I have heard of these 
religious bodies is truth, they are akin, and are mere or 
less Christian, in the fact that their devotees are presum- 
ably non-idolaters, and non-resistants ; that they are 
pledged to trath-telling, temperance, and purity ; that they 
are separated as a peculiar people from their fellow beings ; 
that they are in a measure communists among themselves ; 
and that they teach the " Brotherhood of Man and the 
* Fatherhood of God." They differ particularly in this, that 
"The Dreamers" do not in any way connect their faith with 



278 



MID-LIFE MEMOEABILIA PART II 



Christianity, while the followers of the Japanese prophetess 
acknowledge a certain Christian relationship. The Great 
Spirit is the sole confessed source of the visions and revela- 
tions of the guide of the Indian "Dreamers." u The Elder 
Brother of Jesus Christ," I am told, is the revealer of Ten* 
ri-kyo. 

Confining our attention to the " Dreamers," let me 
for a few moments use what I learned of them as an 
illustration of the important phenomenon of which I have 
spoken, and in which we are all interested, — the Genesis 
and Development of Forms of Religion. 

Looked at from psychological and historical points 
of view, all Forms of Religion come into being induced by, 
and for the sake of, human need. And we can lay it 
down as a regulative principle, that the more inclusive of 
human needs, and the fuller and deeper its power of satis- 
fying human needs, a Form of Religion may be, the more 
certain is it that such Form of Religion will endure and 
extend its sway. 

By the operation of this principle is it, that some 
among the many Forms of Religion which have come 
into being along the ages, have continued and have 
expanded, gathering multitudes as their adherents, among 
widely separated nations and races. By means of this 
principle too, the relative worths of the Faiths of Mankind 
are in the course of time put to the proof, approved or 
condemned. Brahmanism, Zoroastrianism, Confucianism, 
Buddhism, Judaism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity, 
and any other Faith, great or small, which has to any 
degree dominated human life, has come into existence, has 
endured, has gathered strength, or has weakened, and also 
has found its promise for the future, just in the measure to 
which it conforms to, or may conform to, this standard ; 
that is, the service it gives to the human soul. 

The faith of the "Dreamers" when put forth was accepted, 
because, where it came into being, it supplied a conscious 
want. It had had a wide extension, simply for the reason 
that thousands among the American aborigines, for the 
time at least, found in it satisfaction for their spiritual* 
needs. 



1880 THE AMERICAN INDIAN * DREAMERS " 279 



What destiny awaits the faith, of course we can 
not predict. But it will be directed by the principle here 
laid down. Like other forms of religion which have 
started as this has started, the "Dreamers" faith may 
become a permanent and powerful expression of man's 
religious consciousness ; or like many others it may soon 
spend its force, as a specific cult, and disappear. 

The religion of Mohammed had a small beginning, 
growing confessedly out .of Judaism and the original 
Christianity. It departed from both in adding to the pro- 
clamation " There is no God but God," the unique confes- 
sion, "Mohammed is his Prophet." This Form of Eeligion, 
directfy taking much of its doctrine from the Christian 
records, became, as we know, the great historic antagonist 
of organized Christianity, and, for centuries, even threatened 
its destruction. Yet Mohammedanism or " Islam," is now 
one of the most widely spread of the world's religions. 

The faith of the " Latter-Day Saints" had a very feeble 
beginning early in the present century, with the preaching 
of Joseph Smith and the publication of the " Book of 
Mormon." This Form of Religion ordained faith in Jesus 
Christ as the Saviour; it accepted the Bible as God's 
Word ; but it practically ignored both, in receiving as sup- 
plementary to the faith and worship of organized Christ- 
ianity, the newly discovered revelation, which it was 
claimed, had been put in charge of Mormon and Moroni 
on the American continent more than a thousand years 
ago. But Mormonism is now the refuge of hundreds of 
thousands of human souls, and is apparently yet one of the 
enduring Forms of Eeligion. 

Even the Yezidees or " Devil Worshippers " to-day exist 
in tens of thousands in regions of Armenia and the Caucasus 
in South Western Asia, and have existed among the 
peoples there for many centuries. Monotheists, we are 
told, Lelievers in Christ as a Saviour, they yet have espe- 
cially characterized their religious life by fear of Satan, and 
by a ceremonial which is intended to make Satan deal 
with them kindly. This form of religious faith even now 
shows no sign of decay. 

Likewise, the " Dreamers " may be continued, But, 



280 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PAKT II 



on the other hand, it is also possible that the " Dream- 
ers," as such, may have in the future, near or remote, 
no power of further propagation,— I mean as the followers 
of the Sioux prophetess. They may, as such, even cease to 
exist, disappearing at the incoming of a still more satisfy- 
ing faith. Their large influence and rapid extension may 
be the result of certain special elements in their ceremonial 
and teachings peculiaily adaptable to their present mood 
and environment, which the progress of events and change 
of circumstances will make impotent. 

Looking back over Christian history we see, for example, 
now as names only, great and small religious movements, 
which diverged to one side or another from the main course 
of developing Christianity, passing long or brief careers 
and disappearing at last. Hundreds of such movements 
have come and gone. 

In the early Christian centuries, for instance, many 
ready souls welcomed the claims of Simon Magus, whose 
prophesying developed into what was afterwards apparent- 
ly to be the commanding force of Christendom, — Gnost- 
icism. But Gnosticism long ago failed to hold the allegiance 
of the multitudes descended from those who had found in it 
their hope and inspiration. 

And where are now the successors of the devoted band 
that, only a hundred years ago, saw in Joanna Southcott, 
the Divinely ordained Messenger, who, under the direction 
of Christ, had come among men to announce the end of 
the world and the establishment of " God's Kingdom " 
upon earth ? None are to be found. 

Each century gives repeated illustrations of many just 
such failures as that of this mother of the * ' Second 
Shiloh." ■ 

Our principle works continuously : — Just so long and so 
far as a Form of Religion satisfies, or can be made to 
satisfy, the minds and hearts of any who are brought 
under its influence, so long it will live ; strong or weak, 
growing or failing. The future of the " Dreamers," we can 
therefore say, depends upon the continued power of this 
faith and cult to satisfy the wants of " the spirit in man/' 

Now, in conclusion, let me add a few words with special 



1880 THE AMERICAN INDIAN " DREAMERS " 281 



reference t d the great Form of Religion whose name we 
bear, above all the other names which mark us. One of 
the clearest testimonies to the supreme value of Christianity 
among the faiths which have developed into religions of 
world-wide importance, is to me its apparently inexhaustible 
inclusiveness, and its modifying and transforming power, 
acknowledged or not, wherever it is made known, 

Think of its inclusiveness, Eemember the scores and even 
hundreds of differing active religious bodies now existing 
and calling themselves " Christian." In the United States 
only, the last census disclosed the fact that there are no fewer 
than one hundred and thirty-four different denominations 
of professed Christians : — one hundred and thirty-four 
groups of men and women, segregated by special needs ; 
keeping active these many Forms of Religion as so many 
answers to the demands of their specifie differing wants ; 
yet all of them believing their highest and deepest needs 
to be met somehow within Christianity. 

Kecall the many hundreds of Christian sects which have 
appeared and disappeared along the centuries of the 
Christian era, — each sect distinctly marked by specific 
doctrines or ceremonies, vet all bearing the one name of 
the Christ. 

A great lesson of history seems to be that Christianity 
has supreme worth, and is assured of an indefinitely 
enlarging dominion among men, because of the con- 
stantly expanding inclusiveness inherent in its fundamental 
doctrines and ideals. By means of this quality, Christ- 
ianity not only met the needs of the complex multitudes 
who lived under the sway of Imperial Rome,— the Jews, the 
Greeks, the Romans, and the barbarians of the provinces — 
but for nearly two thousand years it has steadily gathered 
strength, receiving under its acknowledged guidance, in many 
different forms of confession, the peoples of all Europe, and 
of w r idely sundered nations and tribes in Africa, America, 
Asia, and in the islands of the seas. In recent centuries, 
especially, Christianity has been gaining the allegiance of 
many of the adherents of the widely remote ancient faiths 
of the civilized peoples of Asia. It is, moreover, marvellous 
to say, drawing new strength and expansion from the 



282 



MID-LIFE MBMOBABILIA 



PAET II 



maturing Philosophy and Science of the world, which to 
many are seemingly barren of all religious force or 
substance. 

The very fact that Christianity somehow co-exists with, 
or is confessed through, its manifold and widely divergent 
sectarianism ; that it is accepted more and more among all 
peoples and races of men ; and that it remains not only 
unweakened but reinvigorated in contact with man's per- 
petually advancing knowledge ; is evidence to me that no 
one has yet begun to measure the extent of its real capacity 
to meet and to serve human need. Apparently, in Christ- 
ianity there are fundamental principles with which all souls 
can satisfy their wants both of faith and of life. Wherever 
this Gospel is borne, its power in one or another form is 
sooner or later felt. Even among such aberrations as " The 
Dreamers," where the Christ name does not appear, the 
Christ power is yet manifest. The essential Christianity 
thus is, so far, seemingly as large as the need and hope of 
Man. Its history makes it prophetic of a time when all 
souls shall be consecrated to the realization of its Ideal. 

And what is that " Ideal " but a perfected consciousness 
in the human soul of the Fatherhood of God and the Bro- 
therhood of Man : such life as that which Jesus taught and 
exemplified ; the law of which is love ; the end of which 
is universal righteousness and peace. 



b. Stay among the Seminole of Florida. — My stay 
among the Seminole Indians was a delightful and, intel- 
lectually, an exceptionally stimulating experience. I was 
many weeks among these people, who at that time were 
living in practically complete isolation from white men, un- 
embarrassed by either the limits of a Government Eeserva- 
tion, or the rules of an Indian Agency. They acknowledged 
no allegiance to the United States, and, as far as possible, 
avoided contact with the advancing settlers of the white 
race. 



1881 



THE FLORIDA SEMINOLE 



283 



A large part of the results of my stay among these 
Florida Indians was published in 1887, in The Fifth 
Annual Report of the Burea u of Ethnology . This report 
was much less extended than it would have been but for 
the long illness which befell me during the next two years 
and longer. Yet, in this monograph, for the first time, was 
given a systematic and careful account of the physical and 
psychical characteristics ; of the social life in the family, 
gens and tribe ; of the industries, arts and of the religious 
beliefs and rites ; together with a description of the natural 
and human environment of this remnant of one of the 
most remarkable of America's aboriginal peoples. With 
the report, I was fortunately enabled to deposit in the 
archives of the Institution a large vocabulary of Seminole 
words and phrases, together with a systematization of the 
verbal forms of the Seminole speech. 

It may interest my friends to have among these 
" Memorials" an account of the environment of the Semi- 
nole, natural and human, as it was in the winter of 1880- 
81. I repeat it from the Fourth Chapter of my " Beport." 

II. 

" Environment of the Seminole. 
a. nature. 

Southern Florida, the region to which most of the 
Seminole have been driven by the advances of civilization, 
is, taken all in all, unlike any other part of our country. 
In climate it is subtropical ; in character of soil it shows a 
contrast of comparative barrenness and abounding fertility ; 
and in topography it is a plain, with hardly any percept- 
ible natural elevations or depressions. The following 
description, based upon the notes of my journey to the 
Big Cypress Swamp, indicates the character of the country 
generally. 



284 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



•PART II 



I left Myers, on the Caloosahatchie Eiver, a small 
settlement composed principally of cattlemen, one morning 
in the month of February. Even in February the sun 
was so hot that clothing was a burden. As we started 
upon our journey, which was to be for a distance of sixty 
miles or more, my attention was called to the fact that the 
harness of the horse attached to my buggy was without the 
breeching. I was told that this part of the harness would 
not be needed, so level should we find the country. Our 
way, soon after leaving the main street of Myers, entered 
pine woods. The soil across which we traveled at first 
was a dry, dazzling white sand, over which was scattered a 
growth of dwarf palmetto. The pine trees were not near 
enough together to shade us from the fierce sun. This 
sparseness of growth, and comparative absence of shade, 
is one marked characteristic of Florida's pine woods. 
Through this thin forest we drove all the day. The 
monotonous scenery was unchanged except that at a short 
distance from Myers it was broken by swamps and ponds. 
So far as the appearance of the country around us indicat- 
ed, we could not tell whether we were two miles or twenty 
from our starting point. Nearly half our way during the 
first day lay through water, and yet we were in the midst 
of what is called the winter " dry season:' The water 
took the shape here of a swamp and there of a pond, but 
where the swamp or the pond began or ended it was 
scarcely possible to tell. One passed by almost imperceptible 
degrees from dry land to moist, and from moist land into 
pool or marsh. Generally, however, the swamps were 
filled with a growth of cypress trees. These cypress groups 
were well defined in the pine woods by the closeness of 
their growth and the sharpness of the boundaries of the 
clusters. Usually, too, the cypress swamps were surround- 
ed by rims of water grasses. Six miles from Myers we 
crossed a cypress swamp, in which the water at its greatest 
depth was from one foot to two feet deep. A wagon road 
had been cut through the dense growth of trees, and the 
trees were covered with hanging mosses and air plants. 

The ponds differed from the swamps only in being tree- 
less. They are open sheets of water surrounded by bands 



1831 



THE FLORIDA SEMINOLE 



285 



of greater or less width of tall grasses. The third day, 
between thirty and forty miles from Myers, we left the pine 
tree lands and started across what are named in Southern 
Florida the " prairies." These are w 7 ide stretches covered 
with grass and with scrub palmetto, and dotted at near 
intervals with whit are called pine " islands " or " ham- 
mocks " and cypress swamps. The pine island, or 
hammock, is a slight elevation of the soil, rising a few inches 
above the dead level. The cypress swamp, on the contrary, 
seems to have its origin only in a slight depression in the 
plain. Where there is a ring of slight depression, enclosing 
a slight elevation, there is generally a combination of 
cypress and pine and oak growth. For, say, fifteen miles 
we traveled that third day over this expanse of grass. Most 
of the way we were in water, among pine islands, skirting 
cypress swamps and saw-grass marshes, and being jolted 
through thick clumps of scrub palmetto. Before nightfall 
w T e reached the district occupied by the Indians, passing 
there into what is called the " Bad Country," an immense 
expanse of submerged land, with here and there islands 
rising from it, as from the drier prairies, We had a weird 
ride that afternoon and night. Now w 7 e passed through 
saw-grass six feet high and w T ere in water a foot or 
more in depth ; then v\ r e encircled some impenetrable 
jungle of vines and trees, and again we took our way out 
upon a vast expanse of water and grass. At but one place 
in a distance of several miles was it dry enough for one to 
step upon the ground without wetting the feet. 

We reached that place at nightfall, but found no wood 
there for making a fire. We were four miles then from any 
good camping ground. Captain Hendry asked our Indian 
companion whether he could take us through the darkness 
to a place called the "Buck Pens." Ko-nip-ha-tco said, "Me 
can go." Under his guidance we started in the twilight, 
the sky covered with clouds. The night which followed was 
starless; and soon we were splashing through a country which, 
to my eyes, was trackless. There were visible to me no 
landmarks. But our Indian, following what to him was a 
"trail " made by his own people, about nine o'clock brought 
us to the object of our search. A black mass suddenly. 



286 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PART II 



appeared in the darkness. It was the pine island we were 
seeking, the " Buck Pens." 

On our journey that day we had crossed a stream, so 
called, the Ak-ho-lo-wa-koo-tci. So level is the country, 
however, and so sluggish the flow of water there that this 
river, where we crossed it, was more like a swamp than a 
stream. Indeed, in Southern Florida the streams, for a 
long distance from what would be called their sources, are 
more a succession of swamps than well defined currents 
confined to channels by banks. They have no real shores 
until they are well on their wa}> towards the ocean. 

Beyond the point I reached, on the edge of the Big 
Cypress Swamp, lie the Everglades proper ; a wide district 
with only deeper water and better defined islands than 
those which mark the " Bad Country " and the " Devil's 
Garden " I had entered. 

The description I have given refers to that part of the 
State of Florida lying south of the Caloosahatchee Kiver. 
It is in this watery prairie and Everglades region that we 
find the immediate environment of most of the Seminole 
Indians. Of the surroundings of the Seminole north of 
the Caloosahatchee there is but little to say in modification 
of what has already been said. Near the Fish Eating 
Creek " settlement " there is a somewhat drier prairie land 
than that which I have just described. The range of barren 
sand hills which extends fror$ the north along the middle 
of Florida to the headwaters of the Kissimmee Eiver ends 
at Cat Fish Lake. Excepting these modifications, the 
topography of the whole Indian country of Florida is 
substantially the same as that which we traversed on the 
w&y from Myers into the Big Cypress Swamp and the 
Everglades. 

Over this wide and seeming level of land and water, as 
I have said, there is a subtropical climate. I visited the 
Seminole in midwinter ; yet, for all that my northern 
senses could discover, we were in the midst of summer. 
The few deciduous trees there were having a midyear 
pause, but trees with dense foliage, flowers, fruit, and 
growing grass were to be seen everywhere. The tempera- 
ture was that of a northern June. By night we made 



1831 



THE FLOBIDA SEMINOLE 



287 



our beds on the ground without discomfort from cold, and 
by day we were under the heat of a summer sun. There 
was certainly nothing in the climate to make one feel the 
need of more clothing or shelter than would protect from 
excessive heat or rain. 

Then the abundance of food, both animal and vegeta- 
ble, obtainable in that region seemed to me to do away 
with the necessity, on the part of the people living there, 
for a struggle for existence. As I have already stated, the 
soil is quite barren over a large part of the district ; but, 
on the other hand, there is also in many places a fertility 
of soil that cannot be surpassed. Plantings are followed 
by superabundant harvests, and the hunter is richly 
rewarded. But I need not repeat what has already been 
said ; it suffices to note that the natural environment of 
the Seminole is such that ordinary effort serves to supply 
them, physically, with more than they need. 

b. MAX. 

When we consider, in connection w r ith these facts, what 
I have also before said, that these Indians are in no 
exceptional danger from wild animals or poisonous reptiles ; 
that they need not specially guard against epidemic 
disease ; and when we remember that they are native to 
whatever influences might affect injuriously persons from 
other parts of the country, we can easily see how much 
more favorably situated for physical prosperity they are 
than others of their kind. In fact, nature has made 
physical life so easy to them that their great danger lies in 
the possible want, or decadence, of the moral strength 
needed to maintain them in a vigorous use of their powers. 
This moral strength to some degree they have, but in 
large measure it had its origin in and has been preserved 
by their struggles with man rather than with nature. 

The wars of their ancestors, extending over nearly two 
centuries, did the most to make them the brave and proud 
people they are. It is through the effects of those wars, 
chiefly, that they have been kept from becoming indolent 
and effeminate. They are now strong, fearless, haughty, 
and independent. 



288 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



But the near future is to initiate a new epoch in 
their history ; an era in which their career may be the 
reverse of what it has been. Man is becoming a factor 
of new importance in their environment. The mov- 
ing lines of the white population are closing in upon 
the land of the Seminole. There is no farther retreat to 
which they can go. It is their impulse to resist the 
intruders ; but some of them are at last becoming wise 
enough to know that they cannot contend successfully 
with the white man. It is possible that even their few 
warriors may make an effort to stay the oncoming hosts, 
but, ultimately, they will either perish in the futile attempt, 
or they will have to submit to a civilization which, until 
now, they have been able to repel, and whose injurious 
accompaniments may degrade and destroy them. 

Hitherto the white man's influence has been compara- 
tively of no effect except in arousing in the Indian his more 
violent passions and in exciting him to open hostility. For 
more than three centuries the European has been face to 
face with the Florida Indian, and the two have never really 
been friends. Through the Seventeenth and Eighteenth 
Centuries, the peninsula was the scene of frequently re- 
newed warfare. Spaniard, Frenchman, Englishman, and 
Spaniard, in turn, kept the country in an unsettled state ; 
and when the American Union received the province from 
Spain, sixty years ago, it received with it, in the tribe of 
the Seminole, an embittered and determined race of hostile 
subjects. This people, our Government has never been 
able to conciliate or to conquer. A different Indian policy, 
or a different administration of the policy established, 
might have prevented the disastrous wars of the last half 
century ; but, as all know, the Seminole have always lived 
within our borders as aliens. 

It is only of late years, and through natural neces- 
sities, that any friendly intercourse of white man and 
Indian has been secured. The Indian has become too 
weak to contend successfully against his neighbor, and the 
white man has learned enough to refrain from arousing 
the vindictiveness of the savage. The few white men 
now on the border line in Florida are, with only few 



18S1 



THE FLORIDA SEMINOLE 



289 



exceptions, cattle dealers or traders seeking barter with 
the red men. The cattlemen sometimes meet the Indians 
on the prairies and are friendly with them for the sake of 
their stock, which often strays into the Seminole country. 
The other places of contact of the whites and Seminole 
aie the settlements of Myers, Miami, Bartow, Fort Meade, 
and Tampa, all, however, centers of comparatively small 
population. To these places, at infrequent intervals, the 
Indians go for purposes of trade. 

The Indians have appropriated for their service some of 
the products of European civilization, such as weapons, 
implements, domestic utensils, fabrics for clothing, etc. 
Mentally, excepting a few religious ideas which they 
received long ago from the teaching of Spanish mission- 
aries, and, in the southern settlements, excepting some 
few Spanish words, the Seminole have accepted and 
appropriated practically nothing from the white man. 
The two peoples remain, as they always have been, 
separate and independent. Up to the present, therefore, 
the human environment has had no effect upon the 
Indians aside from that which has just been noticed, 
except to arouse them to war and to produce among them 
war's consequences. 

But soon a great and rapid change must take place. 
The large immigration of a white population into Florida, 
and, especially, the attempts at present being made to 
drain Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades, make it 
certain, as I have said, that the Seminole is about to enter 
a future unlike any past he has known. But now that 
new factors are beginning to effect his career ; now that he 
can no longer retreat; now that he can no longer successfully 
contend ; now that he is to be forced into close, unavoid- 
able contact with men he has known only as enemies, 
what will he become ? If we anger him, he still can do 
much harm before we can conquer him ; but if we seek, 
by a proper policy, to do him justice, he yet may be made 
our friend and ally. Already, to the dislike of the old 
men of the tribe, some young braves show a willingness 
to break down the ancient barriers between them and our 
people ; and I believe it possible that, with encouragement, 



290 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



at a time not far distant, all these Indians may become 
our friends, forgetting their tragic past in a peaceful and 
prosperous future." 

c. In Italy, and in the American Northwest. — I returned 
from Florida to "Washington in the the spring of 1881; 
only to become seriously ill. The physical collapse that 
threatened at the time of my resignation from All Souls 
Church had come. I was compelled to give up my work 
and to seek recovery through complete rest. I had be- 
come over interested in ethnological studies, and, possibly, 
because of my debility, I had been poisoned by malaria in 
the Florida swamps. 

I went to Sicily and Italy in the following autumn, 
and stayed there until the next summer. But I failed to 
get the restoration I sought. I returned to America. 
My illness continued into another year. It was not until I 
had gone into the far- West, to Montana, and had lived 
much in the open air in that tonic atmosphere, where, so 
my physician had told me, " rapid tissue change would be 
necessitated," that normal mental and physical vigor 
began to come back. 

With this restoration I went as far eastward as 
Minneapolis, Minnesota, and there remained until I was 
commissioned by the American Unitarian Association to 
goto Japan as one of its representatives in the work it 
was about to begin there. 

2. 

In Minneapolis and St. Paul: 
1884-1889. 

I had a deeply interesting and most instructive ex- 
perience in the practical and non- clerical relations of life, 



1884-89 IN MINNEAPOLIS AND SAINT PAUL 



291 



in the five years I spent in the " Twin-Cities/' Minneapolis 
and St. Paul. Coming from Montana, I decided to stay 
in the Northwest chiefly because of the healthfullness of 
the climate. For occupation, I contributed considerably to 
local newspapers ; preached and lectured somewhat ; and 
attempted to take part in the industrial, commercial and 
political interests of the " twin" communities. 

a. At Unity Church in St. Paul. — During the year 
1885-86, 1 occupied the pulpit of the "Unity Church" in St. 
Paul, giving my ministry, in large part, to helping forward, 
by religious agencies, such matters as " Municipal Better- 
ment," and the work of the "Law and Order League." 
I was particularly interested in an improvement of the 
beneficent societies of the community through a systematic 
" Charity Organization." 

I returned to Minnepolis in 1886, and resumed former 
newspaper and literary occupations. For some time, 
thereafter, I was the editor of a weekly paper named 
The Commercial Bulletin. I used its columns as much 
as possible for the advancement of the welfare of the com- 
munity in accordance with high ethical standards. The 
Bulletin took sides with various needed reforms, not only 
in industrial and commercial matters, but in municipal 
affairs as well. The editorial columns were often quoted 
from. As chairman of a committee, I prepared the Report 
of the City's " Board of Trade/ 1 which initiated the move- 
ment that led to the abolition of railway grade-crossings in 
Minneapolis. I had, also, somewhat to do with subsequent 
negotiations to that end. 

b. Candidacy for Professorship in the University of 
Minnesota. — The most important of my experiences during 
that eventful decade was a candidature for the chair of 



292 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PART II 



Mental and Moral Philosophy in the University of Min- 
nesota. This experience was personally important, be- 
cause I much wished for the position, after the candidacy 
had been begun, having had a special liking and prepara- 
tion for the work to be followed under its care. The 
experience was of public importance, also, because of its 
having been the means for indicating how seriously, in 
those days, a vigorous threat to arouse a sectarian agitation 
might interfere in the administration of a State institution. 

The principal facts bearing upon the episode, so far as 
they are needed to inform my friends who wish to know, 
are these. 

In the spring of 1886, some St. Paul and Minneapolis 
friends presented my name to the Board of Eegents of the 
State University in candidacy for "the Chair of Philosophy." 
I think that the proposition started with the Hon. C. M. 
Loring of Minneapolis, a friend who was exceptionally 
well acquainted with me. My profession as a Unitarian 
minister being, presumably, an obstacle in the way to so 
important a position as that of teacher of ethics, as w T ell as 
of psychology, and of logic in the State University, some 
clergymen in St. Paul where I was temporarily resident, 
were consulted concerning the proposition. To my great 
gratification nine of the leading Orthodox clergymen of the 
city, men representative in their denominations, united in a 
letter to President Northrop, who had recently been chosen 
to the headship of the institution and was administering 
its newly begun prosperity with great energy and skill. 

As this letter is of a good deal of worth in show- 
ing the relation of these nine prominent clergymen 
to me in my candidacy, and has considerable significance 
in connection with what directly followed, I copy it here. 



1SS6-87 



UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA 



" St. Paul, April 30, 1886. 
To President Noetheop of the State University ; 

Dear Sir : — Learning that Eev. Clay MacCauley is a 
candidate for the chair of Mental and Moral Philosophy 
in your institution, soon to be vacant ; we desire to 
commend him to your favorable regard. Our relations 
with him have been fraternal, and his Christian spirit and 
bearing have won our esteem, while his interest in the 
matters we have discussed together affecting the moral 
improvement of our city and the advancement of righteous- 
ness has increased our respect for him as a brother and 
fellow laborer. 5 ' 

E. S. Thomas, Bector of St. Paul's Church ; M. 
N. Gilbert, Bector of Christ Church; M. M.G. Dana, 
Pastor Plymouth Church ; Eobert Forbes, Pastor Jack- 
son St., M. E. Church ; Henry C. Mabie, Pastor 
First Baptist Church ; E. C. Mitchell, Pastor New 
Jerusalem Church ; E. C. Evans, Pastor Pacific Con- 
gregational Church ; Maurice D. Edwards, Pastor Dayton 
Avenue Presbyterian Church ; E. Jay Coates, Bector St. 
John's Church, 

Of course, this letter had no value as an endorsement 
of my intellectual equipment for the professorship I was 
seeking. I repeat it only to show that these Orthodox 
clergymen did not fear that if a Unitarian were chosen 
to the office he would, " have an evil influence over the 
sons of our farmers " as, in part, a subsequent objection to 
me was phrased. 

Not long after my candidacy was announced, the 
University's " Board of Eegents" was in possession of a very 
large and widely representative endorsement, not only of 
my personal but of my scholarly fitness, too, for the pro- 
fessorship. One of the Eegents told me that I had had 
an endorsement " more complimentary, more authoritative 



294 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



and distinguished than any ever before given to a candi- 
date " for an office in the institution. 

Among these generous supporters were Prof. Simon 
Newcomb ; Justice S. F. Miller of the U.S. Supreme 
Court, in several communications ; ex-Secretary of War, 
Hon. Geo. W. McCrary, who, also, wrote several letters ; 
U.S. Senator, Hon. Justin S. Morrill ; ex- Vice Pre- 
sident, Hannibal Hamlin ; Chief Justice Appleton, of 
Maine ; Major J. W. Powell, Director of the Bureau 
of Ethnology ; Eev. Dr. E. E. Hale ; Eev. Dr. Thomas 
Hill, ex-president of Harvard University ; ex-Gov- 
ernor Hubbard, of Minnesota ; the then Governor, 
Alexander McGill ; Hon. Justice J. B. Gilfillan ; Hon, 
Charles B. Lamborn ; Hon. Hastings H. Hart, chairman 
of State Board of Charities ; and further, a number of 
other well known educationists and publicists whose letters 
I have not now among my papers. 

Hon. Geo. W.' McCrary thought it prudent to speak of 
me in one of his letters as not only having " spent much 
time in philosophic studies at home and abroad, and being 
eminently fitted by character, education and experience for 
the position, but as being a reverent and earnest man, 
whose religious attitude would be always towards the con- 
servation of faith, of reverence, and of moral obligation." 

My election was spoken of publicly as a foregone con- 
clusion, when the time for the action of the Kegents drew 
near. One day, during a visit, I was introduced, at the 
house of the president, to a student, as her " future 
teacher in logic " ; and in some of the local newspapers it 
was assumed that I was the coming professor of philo- 
sophy for the University. 

But, just then, a vigorous opposition to my election was 



1SS6 



UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA 



295 



brought before the University authorities ; it delayed the 
expected election. The opposition, so I was told, did not 
concern me either as scholar or man. At the first, the 
only reason for it, I heard of, was that, because of 
my being a well-known Unitarian minister, it was not 
fitting that I should " teach the sons of our farmers so 
important a subject as ethics." In time, I learned the whole 
of a peculiar story concerning what had become a barrier 
in my way and, thereby, had prevented the selection, that 
year, of any occupant for the vacant chair. 

It will serve no good purpose now, however, to connect 
this opposition by name with any person, or to explain 
the episode fully, I should not hesitate, however, to 
mention names had not the sectarian reason advanced 
against me been actually more a pretence of opposition 
than a reality, or even had this pretence been allowed to go 
beyond the stage of being more than an annoying threat. 

I do not know 7 the details of the discussion which took 
place in the session of the Board of .Regents in which the 
decision concerning the proposed election was reached. 
All I knew, at the first, authoritatively of that meeting came 
from a letter received immediately afterwards, written to 
me by President Northrop, in which he expressed much 
regret that no election had taken place. 

The election " had been postponed for a year," at his 
"own request," he said, adding that he had been "expecting 
at any moment" during the meeting that I would be chosen. 
I learned later that had a vote been reached it would have 
been given, with but one, possibly two, exceptions, in my 
favor. " Under the circumstances," said the president, 
" I felt justified in interfering, and asked the regent? to 
postpone the vote for a year." The president thought it 



296 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



due to me to tell me that he " assumed whatever responsi- 
bility " there would be for the postponement ; and he 
believed that I would judge his act aright did I know all 
the facts. 

I learned from other sources not long afterwards, — in 
fact from the regent who was most directly concerned, — of 
the real reason for the interruption of the vote w T hich, it had 
been expected, would be uuanirnous for me. Because of this 
reason I soon came to feel that the president, all things 
considered, had acted for the best in making his request. 
He had recently been installed in office, and it was of special 
importance that the new administration of the University 
should, if possible, have the unanimous support of its gov- 
erning Board. 

My immediate wishes were, of course, seriously disap- 
pointed ; but I knew, even in my disappointment, that per- 
sonal gratification was of little moment compared with the 
larger welfare. 

I tell this much of that Minnesota University incident, 
that my friends may know enough of it to understand that 
the considerations decisive in it had no relation whatever 
to my personal character, or to my fitness for the office 
I sought. Also I wish them to know that the opposition to 
my election, though citing the fact of my being a Unitarian 
minister as a threatened peril to the institution, was not 
primarily based upon that fact. 

No object of sufficient worth now, however, would be 
gained by my going farther into an explication of the 
surprising and unwelcome experience. To the extent 
I have explained it here it will sufficiently inform my 
friends of what my directly personal relation to the course 



1886 



UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA 



297 



of the events was : and there the story, so far as these 
" Memories " have to do with it, may end. 

After this action of the University's governing Board had 
been made public, of course, the supposititious peril 
of a sectarian agitation in case of my election, had not 
even a seeming reason for being. And so far as I was 
concerned individually I had no inclination to make even 
an intimation to the public of having " a grievance." In 
fact, I declined to join with some others who wished to 
begin a public "protest,'' over what had occurred. So it 
came about, that the whole matter was soon relieved of 
notice and came to nothing. 

As would be expected, I was the recipient of a number 
of letters after the decision of the University authorities, 
about the filling of the chair of " Mental and Moral 
Science," had become known. Among then was one whose 
writer was under the impression that President Northrop 
had really been led to his decision by the threatened Ortho- 
dox religious opposition. This letter expresses so well what 
would have been the best judgment not only of personal 
friends but of the real friends of the University, if its 
supposition had been fact, that it will will bear quoting from. 
It refers to another letter from the president than that of 
which I have just spoken, and to something which the 
president had said of a possible sectarian agitation in 
connection with the University's affairs. 

"I am glad " wrote my friend, "that you have the 
president's letter. - - - If he should think seriously of the 
situation he might see a danger of the matter of denomi- 
national influence in a State university coming into general 
discussion throughout the State, with damaging effect upon 
the prospects of the institution. 



298 



MID-LIFE MEMOEABILIA 



PART II 



There is too much liberal feeling in Minnesota to be 
ignored if it were roused- into active expression. If the 
president would boldly take a stand he would find more 
support from the fair-minded Evangelical church members, 
who do not wish doctrinal teaching and from the liberal 

people, than all he would lose through- -'s influence. 

It is a question which has to be settled sooner or later in this 
as in other States ; and, certainly, the institutions that are 
free from denominational control, like Cornell and Ann 
Arbor, speak for themselves. 

I hope that President will not influence 

your president against the larger view. It the Eegents are 
ready to support him heartily be ought not to be afraid to 
make the trial at least. 

One man of marked ability, with a reputation beyond 
the State, would help the University more than a dozen 
ordinary professors ; and the institution with the strongest 
faculty is bound to have the largest number of students in 
spite of all that narrow-minded men can do. As soon as 
the Chairs of the University of Minnesota are filled with 
first-class men, it will be safe from any assault that any 
cry of ' infidelity ' can raise." 

Notwithstanding President Northrop's decision, which 
was not a little embarrassing to me at the time, because 
of the publicity which had been given to my candidacy ; 
and the general supposition, among friends, that the formal 
election would be merely a formality, I had no in- 
clination to blame, much less to antagonize him. 
Because of his letters, and also of what he said in a 
subsequent conversation, I accepted with friendliness 
his judgment, although, as I have said, some friends advised 
a public " protest." In fact, I sought rather to support 
President Northrop in his efforts to farther the prosperity of 
the important charge which had been but recently entrust- 
ed to him and needed all support available. 



1S87 LECTURES AT MINNESOTA UNIVERSITY 299 



c. Course of Lectures at the University of Minnesota, — 
During the following winter of 1886-1887, I had the 
honor of being invited by the University administration to 
deliver at the University a course of lectures on " The 
Fundamental Truths in Philosophy/' The subjects I 
chose were, — 

1. — The Meaning and Value of the Study of Philosophy . 

2. — Philosophy in the Present Age. 

3. — Fundamental Data for Psychology. 

4. — The Mind's Process in Thinking : Approach to Logic. 

5. — Nature and Sources of Moral Obligation: Intro- 
duction to Ethics. 

6. — Apprehension and Beal Worth of the Principle of 
Philosophy. 

These lecture w 7 ere intended to be a sort of conspectus 
of the beginnings of the particular studies, — Psychology, 
Logic, Ethics, and Pure Philosophy, — which I should have 
had under my care had I been chosen to the professorship 
for which I had been a candidate. 

In the preparation of these lectures I was, of course, de- 
pendent upon many years study of a large part of the vast 
literature devoted to the themes selected ; but I gratefully 
acknowledge here, as a radically important factor in guid- 
ing the processes of my reasoning, the speculations of Karl 
Christian FriedrichKrause, — to whose profound speculations 
I have already offered tribute, — together with the elabora- 
tion of Krause's thought by some of his most capable 
expositors, particularly Professor H. Ahrens, of the Leipzig 
University, and Professor G. Tiberghien, of the University 
of Brussels. 

, I reproduce these lectures here, not only because I still 
believe that they embody essential and fundamental truths 



300 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



of the highest value, — truths which are especially needed 
in association with the utilitarian thinking and work of the 
passing age, — but, immediately, because my friends may 
have some reliable record of the ultimate motives and 
methods which had become distinctive of my matured 
mental and spiritual development. 



FUNDAMENTAL TKUTHS OF PHILOSOPHY 
FIRST LECTURE 

The Meaning and Value of the Study of 
Philosophy 

1 

THE PHILOSOPHIC IDEAL. 

There was a time when Man somehow became possess- 
ed of the belief that there is a Universe. How or when 
this belief was reached it is not necessary for us to try to 
learn. It is sufficient now simply to note the fact that, at 
some time, the human mind passed beyond its experiences 
and made the assumption that all things and events are 
related to one another as parts and wholes ; as effects and 
causes ; and that all are ultimately, in some way, One 
Whole. The history of human thought is in largest part 
a record of work done under the influence of this belief. 
The most energetic and persistent labor of which mind 
has been capable has been evoked by it. It has wrought 
specific results which, time and again, have dominated 
ages in the life of Mankind. 

This intellectual enterprise, as a whole, has been named 
Philosophy. The ideal set forth in the transcendent 
assumption that there is a real Universe, I shall call the 
Philosophic Ideal. 

The product of Philosophy in history has been manifold. 
It consists of a multitude of systems of thought differing 
from one another to a greater or less degree ; some 



18S7 



THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY 



301 



differing from others so widely that,, seemingly, there is no 
uniting bond among them. As far apart are some 
systems of Philosophy as the definition "the science of 
the Absolute" is separated from the definition "the 
explanation of the phenomena of the Universe." Some 
philosophers have asserted, as a result of their search for or- 
iginal, universal Unity, that all things have had their genesis 
in some form of matter, such as water or air ; other philoso- 
phers have come to the conclusion that the Universe is but 
" a process of Thought." Yet, however many may be the 
forms of Philosophy ; however far apart the definitions of 
their name, or divergent their conclusions, all systems of 
thought, to which general consent allows the name 
" philosophic," are more or less under the direction of the 
one Ideal. " The aim of philosophy (whether attainable 
or not)," says Professor Andrew Seth, "is to exhibit the 
Universe as a rational system in the harmony of all its 
parts." Sir William Hamilton wrote, "The tendency of 
our nature of which philosophy is the result, is the desire 
of unity. The history of philosophy is only the history of 
this tendency ; and philosophers have amply testified to its 
reality." Professor Charles Carroll Everett thus emphas- 
ises this opinion ; "It should be observed, first of all and 
remembered through all, that from the beginning to the 
end of philosophy, taking in systems the most frivolous 
and most opposed, they all have this in common, that 
they affirm the absolute unity of the world and of the 
universe. They all are alike searching for the principle of 
unity." 

So then, whatever the efforts mankind may make to 
explain the things and events of experience, under the 
belief that they are all systematically related to one 
another and are all ultimately united, such efforts are to 
be included under the generic term, Philosophy. In 
other words, any attempt to realize for Thought an ideal 
of substantial and causal unity in the myriad variety of 
Universe is a form of Philosophy. These lectures have 
originated in a wish, I have long held, to make some 
further contribution towards the realization of the Philo- 
sophic Ideal. 



302 



MID-LIFE MEMOEABILIA 



PAET II 



II. 

SOME OBJECTIONS TO THE STUDY OF 
PHILOSOPHY. 

Certain objections have been raised, and are urged with 
considerable earnestness, to such attempts as that which I 
have proposed to make. 

Even while admitting that what is here called the 
Philosophic Ideal exists, some persons declare that, evi- 
dently, nothing is gained by occupying our thoughts with it. 
Evidently, they say, although from an ancient past many 
minds have striven to realize, and have claimed to realize, 
this Ideal, Philosophy so far has been but barren and vain 
speculation. The history of Philosophy is the story of the 
f ruitlessness of a multitude of systems of thought, appear- 
ing and disappearing along the course of thousands of 
years ; the systems often hostile to one another ; drawn 
from contradictory principles, and issuing in antagonistic 
conclusions. Thus far, they say, the philosophic search has 
not once been rewarded by a discovery which, as a whole, has 
received general assent. All attempts to realize the Ideal of 
Philosophy have been failures. The Ideal is evidently an 
illusion. It is the part of wisdom, consequently, to give 
over the search for its realization. 

Yet, I reply, even were it true that Philosophy, as a 
search for a real Principle of Unity in the Universe, is a 
failure, there is still sufficient reason why the search should 
continue. The Philosophic Ideal has served not merely as 
a stimulus and a guide in a search for the universal Prin- 
ciple of all that exists, but, as already intimated, this Ideal 
has been more effective than any other influence in the 
genesis and development of whatever systematised knowl- 
edge is now in man's possession. 

The origin and growth of the separate sciences are an 
illustrious vindication of the validity of the Philosophic 
endeavor. Should belief in universality in the relation of 
parts and wholes, of effects and causes, be destroyed ; 
should belief in organic unity in the Universe be annihilat- 
ed ; should we obliterate from the human mind its ideal of 



1887 



THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY 



303 



the Universe ; the foundation of all the structures which men 
of science are so confidently building would be gone, and 
their work speedily brought to naught. If the Philoso- 
phic Ideal be an illusion the sciences themselves are but the 
fabrics of a dream. " Science is system/' says Professor 
Robert Flint. " To exclude system from science is to sup- 
press and destroy science." " The spirit of system is in 
itself nothing more than the spirit of order and unity. 
Without unity and order — that is, without system — there 
is no science, To systematise is an intellectual necessity." 
Fichte defined philosophy as, " The science of sciences 
generally, or the science of all other sciences, — to furnish 
the principles upon which all sciences depend, and itself to 
have the fundamental Principle." 

We need not be concerned, however, over the skeptical 
challenge against Philosophy aroused by man's apparent 
failure to realize its Ideal. There is no probability, — I ven- 
ture to say there is not even a possibility, — that the human 
mind will abandon service to its transcendent intellectual 
faith, or that Philosophy will be lowered from the com- 
manding place it has hitherto held. Kant spoke truth, I 
think, when he said of metaphysics, the supreme element 
in Philosophy ; — "It is the oldest of the sciences, and 
would still remain even if all the rest were swallowed up 
in the abyss of an all-destroying barbarism." Those who 
profess antagonism to philosophic study appear as witnesses 
against themselves. " However much," remarked Kant in 
reference to these would-be antagonists, " they may try to 
disguise themselves, they unavoidably fall into metaphysical 
declarations and propositions, which they profess to regard 
with so much contempt." In Doctor James Martineau's 
judgment, " No metaphysics are sure to be false. For what 
are they? Their negative name is a delusive mark, and 
no man can reason on these matters at all ; no man can 
even rail at metaphysics without a metaphysical hypothe- 
sis at heart." We may add President Noah Porter's 
declaration ; — " Even when science ignores and denounces 
metaphysics and speculation, it unconsciously sets up 
and uses a metaphysics of its own." 

Every systematic explanation of things or phenomena, 



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PAET II 



I say, depends, really, for whatever worth it has, upon 
the Philosophic Ideal, recognised or not. Every one who 
reasons over the facts of his experience and builds up a 
structure of thought, rising from lower levels of generali- 
zation to higher, and from the postulation of many, to 
fewer orders of co-existence and sequence, is, to the degree 
he reaches, a philosopher. That ivhich is essential in 
Philosophy, I assert, is in no way imperilled by any 
seeming hostility to it. 

Even Positivism, whose advocates judge that, "Philo- 
sophy (as here defined) and Positive Sciencs are irreconcila- 
ble," noticeably depends upon the Philosophic Ideal for 
whatever real worth it has. It was Comte who wrote for 
his own speculations; — " Philosophy is the explanation of 
the phenomena of the Universe." George Henry Lewes, 
a Positivist historian of philosophy, sets forth the object 
of Positivism, as, — "Observing the constant coexistences and 
successions of phenomena amongst themselves, and general- 
izing them into some one Law." And Herbert Spencer, 
though giving many reasons for " dissenting from the 
philosophy of Comte," yet, known to have been a 
sympathetic student of Comte, — this thinker, whose world- 
wide reputation is that he is the writer of " The Philosophy 
of Evolution," and is a champion of Phenomenalism, 
has defined Science as " partially unified knowledge," and 
Philosophy " as " completely unified knowledge." These 
definitions would be meaningless, or worthless, were they 
not drawn from the conviction that there is Unity through- 
out that which may be known. 

Those forms of thought which are known as Nihilism, or 
Absolute Skepticism, we must regard as the despair of 
baffled minds that have striven under the Philosophic 
impulse. 

I claim, then, since all knowledge is dependent for 
whatever scientific value it has upon the guidance of the 
Philosophic Ideal ; and since the fact of the persistence of 
this Ideal is evident even among professed opponents of 
Philosophy, that the seeming failure of the philosophic 
search suggested by the long catalogue of divergent and 
hostile systems of which the history of Philosophy is made 



1887 



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305 



up, is no good reason for abandoning this supreme effort 
of the human mind. On the contrary, the apparent want 
of success hitherto should make yet more imperative the 
demands of the Philosophic Ideal ; — it should arouse new 
vigor in its service. 

Man's matured mind is guided by faith in substantial and 
causal Unity in the limitless Variety of existences ; and, almost 
necessarily, it seeks an intellectual realization of this Unity. 
To this end, all the successively higher and larger gen- 
eralizations of knowledge gained are tributary; finding 
places under the increasing unification whose perfection is 
the goal of Philosophic search, Philosophy is still justified 
in the domain of thought under the name it long ago 
received from Aristotle, — "The Art of arts," and "The 
Science of sciences." To me there are now, therefore, only 
yet stronger incentives for the human mind to continue its 
service to the Philosophic Ideal, assured that with each 
maturer effort some nearer approach, however small, will 
be made to the height which, as a sunlit summit, has, 
for ages, shone before Man's vision ; a height whence 
the world may be known with all its parts disclosed in 
their true relations to one another and to the inclusive 
Whole. With never more imperative sanction than now, 
the philosophic mind may follow whither its Ideal opens 
the way. 

Another objection to such study of Philosophy, as that 
which I have proposed, is based upon the fact that only 
the most highly endowed , and these exceedingly few, minds 
make contributions of any real value in the advance 
towards a realization of the Philosophic Ideal. 

It is to be admitted that very few persons are so gifted 
with intellectual ability ; so prepared by the needed 
culture ; and so able to command their time, that they 
can engage in Philosophic research, especially in original 
investigation. Whither the few lead the vast majority 
follow. History is, in the main, the record of a diffusion 
among multitudes of the results of the philosophic conclu- 
sions of a small number of thinkers. The career of 
Humanity has been shaped chiefly under their direction. 
Science, art, literature, legislation, the many institutions of 



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society, have received their dominant motives chiefly from 
the opinions of these rare leaders. In a word, the con- 
dition of Humanity, at any stage of its career, is determined 
radically by the influence of the thinking of Philosophic 
masters in preceding generations. 

In European civilization, for example, the dominant 
force in its development, — that which issued from the 
thought of Plato and Aristotle, — is beyond measure. 
Hundreds of millions of human beings who, probably, 
never heard the name of either thinker have been affected, 
their lives throughout, in all their civil, social and religious 
relations by the work of these two minds. 

The faiths and lives of countless Christian believers, 
during more than the last thousand years, would never 
have been what they were but for the speculations of 
Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. 

The political and social fate of myriad subjects of the 
kingdoms of Europe for centuries was dependent upon 
the work of Roman Catholic Scholastics who derived their 
strength in large measure from the principles and forms 
for reasoning given to the world by Aristotle. 

How few persons, comparatively, now know the names 
of Lord Bacon and Locke, of Descartes and Spinoza. Yet 
these names stand in the history of the last four hundred 
years as of the founders and exponents of the methods of 
thinking by which the humblest and most obscure men 
and women almost the world around, are now affected in 
mind and body. 

As with European civilization, so with human life as a 
whole. The streams on which the weal and w r oe of which 
nearly all the peoples of Asia are borne have their sources 
in the philosophic conclusions of such minds as those of 
Manu, Kapila, Confucius and Zoroaster. 

Man's career is marked by the fact that, remote from 
ordinary life, unknown and unintelligible to the mass of 
mankind, a few master minds live and think ; whose 
thought extends gradually into ordinary literature and 
into the schools ; then into the common thinking and 
speech of the homes and streets, until, finally, that which 
is fundamental and characteristic in the thought is felt 



1887 



THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY 



307 



and, to a greater or less degree obeyed, by the most igno- 
rant members of Society. 

Now, while I would in no way ignore the fact that it is 
hardly within the bounds of possibility for any of us to 
make noteworthy contributions towards perfecting the 
realization of the Ideal of Philosophy, it does not follow 
that even the humblest among us should remain philo- 
sophically passive, or inert. We are, to an important 
degree, unavoidably the creatures of circumstances, and 
are plastic under the thoughts of others, but we should 
always feel sure that we are, at the same time, in some 
measure original, self-dependent, responsible personalities, 
capable of adding some formative moment to the forces 
which shape us ; and that we are in duty bound to do 
what we can do, however insignificant our act, and how- 
ever little effective beyond ourselves it may be. 

In reference to the Philosophic Ideal ; — although each of 
us must for the most part be a learner, — I claim that we 
can, each, at least make perfectly clear to ourselves just 
what that Ideal is. We can understand its historic worth 
and permanence ; and we can use our knowledge as the 
measure with which to test the Philosophic worth of what- 
ever is offered to us in the name of Philosophy. We can, 
at least, direct our thinking by the fundamental Faith that 
all Existence, in the infinitude of its Variety, is bound 
together, in a limitless series of reciprocal and ascending re- 
lations, icith n ultimate substantial and causal Unity, This 
fundamental Faith, each of us certainly can make his own ; 
and, with it, each of us can become self-reliant and master- 
ful in the midst of the distractions of the differing specu- 
lative systems. With this Faith, each of us can so direct 
his own Philosophic discipleship that he shall be follower 
only of those among the great masters of thought who 
have most steadily maintained faith in universal 
order, and have found confirming order in all the 
facts of experience, — in those facts which are disclosed by 
the senses from without and which are opened within in 
the depths of consciousness. 

This much, assuredly, every mind, even the humblest, 
can do. This much every one should do. And were 



308 



MID-LIFE MEMOEABILIA PAET II 



this much done by all, the Philosophic Ideal would be 
more and more clearly interpreted, and intelligently 
served. Thereby, in some measure, would the perfecting 
of Philosophy be advanced. For this reason, therefore, I 
do not hesitate to make the attempt I have proposed. 

in. 

SOME BENEFITS OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. 

Contributions towards the realization of the Philosophic 
Ideal are not, however, the only reason for our making 
the attempt which I have proposed. The study of Philo- 
sophy may become a work ol the highest possible value 
for those who engage in it. 

Let one's thinking be really governed by this funda- 
mental Faith of the Intellect, and the way will thereby be 
opened to him, to the attainment of more benefits intellec- 
tually, morally and, in fact, personally throughout, than 
by any other means. Properly understood, there is no 
agency so potent as this in aiding one to secure the largest 
and best personal culture, and, thereby, to fulfill the real 
purpose of life. 

In illustration of this claim, let us consider, first, how 
Philosophic study, as we have set it forth, necessarily 
uplifts the mind and widens the range of thought. With 
the Philosophic Ideal in view, one inevitably tends to look 
upon all the woild of Nature and Human Life as a domain- 
of order ; as a realm under the sway of Law. The 
philosophic mind takes this superior attitude. It 
works under the conviction that all things and events have 
reason for being. It believes that all the facts of experi- 
ence may be explained under causes of successively larger 
and larger comprehension ; and that all beings and acts 
cohere in and under One Being and Energy. With this in- 
tellectual exaltation, the horizon of thought is indefinitely 
enlarged. Taking this attitude the mind tends to become 
continually more confident and forceful in dealing with 
the perpetually recurring problems of its experience. 

In a measure, this same intellectual exaltation and 
broadening of view is the effect of any specific scientific 



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THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY 



309 



study. Naturally so, because, as I have claimed, every 
special science is guided by a conviction which, recognized 
or not, is itself dependent upon the Ideal of Philosophy. 
Yet, the mental attitude and the breadth of view of the 
student of a special science, so long as the student shuts 
himself up in his comparatively limited domain, must be, 
just to that extent, depressed and narrowed. I iconic! not he 
understood in saying this, however, to ignore, or to under- 
value, scientific specialization. The more fully a special 
science is developed, the better, I believe, must the result be 
for the further development, or the perfecting of Philoso- 
phy. What I mean to say is this ; that a special science, 
however much matured, has not received its best possible 
development when its organic relations with other sciences 
and, above all, with the Philosophic Ideal have been 
ignored. 

" It is with the ultimate synthesis that philosophy con- 
cerns itself," writes Professor Seth in the Encyclopedia 
Brittanica in the article on Philosophy. " It has to show 
that the subject matter which we are all dealing with in 
detail is a whole, consisting of articulated members. — The 
parts only exist and can only be fully, that is truly, known 
in their relation to the whole. A pure specialist if such a 
being w 7 ere possible, would be merely an instrument whose 
results had to be co-ordinated and used by others, — -The 
tendency of specialists in any department is naturally to 
lose sight of the whole in attention to the particular cate- 
gories, or modes of nature's working, which happen to be 
exemplified and fruitfully applied in their own sphere of 
investigation ; and in proportion as this is the case it 
becomes necessary for their theories to be co-ordinated with 
the results of other inquirers and seen, as it were, in the 
light of the whole. — The philosopher refuses to consider 
the parts out of their relation to the whole, whose parts 
thev are." 

Without a superior sense of the Philosophic Ideal, 
therefore, scientific specialists are not able to make full use 
of the gams they have secured ; they dishonor the very 
conditions which have made their gains possible. In the 
present age, scientific specialization is evidently too much 



310 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



engaged in without reference to the all-inclusive organic 
relationships of all knowledge which make any science 
possible. There is the highest need, therefore, that the 
Ideal of Philosophy should be kept clearly in view by 
workers in the sciences. The attempt I have here proposed 
can, therefore, be of the best service to those of us who 
are students of the various sciences. The study of Philosophy 
can serve to guard our minds against the embarrasing 
limitations which beset much of scientific speculation and 
experiment, Holding steadily in view the supreme Intel- 
lectual Ideal, we shall be best enabled to discover the true 
order and value of that which is offered to us in the name 
of " knowledge." 

Moreover, the study of Philosophy like all studies of 
things and events in their relations to one another, — this 
study, however, in the highest degree, — tends to develop 
inhuman character the excellent quality of intellectual 
caution, or prudence. He who has an intelligent appre- 
hension of the Ideal of Philosophy almost necessarily be- 
comes, to the extent of his ability, exhaustive in investiga- 
tion and, also, hesitant in coming to conclusions. It has 
been said that nothing is more contrary to the Philosophic 
mood than intellectual precipitancy. Immature thinkers, 
minds impulsive under plausible reasoning and easily 
satisfied, can therefore submit themselves to no better 
discipline than the largeness and inclusiveness of the 
mental disposition accompanying a true Philosophic 
consciousness. 

Nor is this much needed intellectual benefit, all. No 
one can worthily apprehend the Ideal of Philosophy 
without becoming to a greater or less degree ennobled in 
feeling. Belief in and search for the order and harmonies 
of the worlds of Nature and Mind are almost inevitably 
accompanied by sublimity in imagination, aspiration, 
assurance and peace. The " joy of elevated thought," and 
" the calm of philosophy," are tributes which from the 
past have been offered by common consent to the study 
which is here advocated. 

And further ; I have read that " the will is father to the 
deed, but the thought and sentiment are father and 



1887 



THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY 



311 



mother to the will. Nothing seems more impotent than a 
thought, it has neither hands nor feet, — but nothing 
proves so powerful." Given, then, a grand ideal and a 
sublime aspiration it is almost certain that ones whole 
personal energy will be urged onward and upward. The 
transcendent Ideal, and the supreme aspiration for man 
have their source in Philosophy. 

I am bold enough to claim, therefore, that there is no 
agency so directly useful in maturing, exalting, and 
strengthening man's personality as a real apprehension of, 
and devotion to the mind's supreme " intuition," the 
Philosophic Ideal. 

But, in addition to these direct personal benefits, there 
is much else that goes to make good the claim just 
advanced. The study of Philosophy, if properly pursued, 
must be subjected to certain conditions. No philosophical 
student, for example, can enter upon his work with hope 
of real success unless he is intellectually free. Freedom 
of thought is inseparably joined with a true apprehension 
of the Ideal of Philosophy. The ages of greatest phil- 
osophic activity have been marked by mental freedom. 
Philosophy is an emancipator. The student of Phil- 
osophy, as such, is neither iconoclast nor rebel ; — his 
aim is an intellectual realization of the fundamental 
rational assumption. He is compelled, consequently, to 
prove all things that he may hold fast that which is true. 
Without mental liberty, the first requisite for success in the 
pursuit of philosophic truth is wanting. The student of 
Philosophy should, I admit, be hospitable to both tradition 
and to contemporary opinion, but in no measure should 
he be servile to either. Truth has everything to gain, and 
errror all to lose, through exact, exhaustive investigation. 

Again, the Philosophic Ideal is of such quality that any 
attempt to contribute towards its realization demands, as 
far as possible, an all-sided study of philosophic problems. 
The truly philosophic mind, therefore, aims at impartiality 
in its researches. In the presence of his Ideal the student 
knows that all forms, or systems of Philosophy are, at 
best, but approximations towards the perfection aimed at. 
And he is assured that, if in any degree philosophic, none 



312 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



of these systems however partial, or uncomplete, is wholly 
false. Comparative Philosophy discloses in each phil- 
osophic system signs of a prevision of a perfect order. 
Tolerance is a genuine philosophic virtue. Discussion, not 
disputation ; the forum, not the arena, should be the resort 
of students of Philosophy. Unpartisan debate is a sure 
sign of philosophic maturity. 

But the benefits following a proper study of Philosophy 
are not confined within the circles of its students. Let 
me repeat in another form what I have said before, that 
human kind, as a whole, are largely under the guidance 
of their philosophers. John Stuart Mill wrote, "The 
w T orth of society is in the long run the worth of the 
individuals composing it." But there is a sense in which 
mankind have an organic life. Individual men and women, 
grouped as families, tribes, nations, and races, in time 
create and establish institutions in which the collective 
human life finds motive and direction. The social organi- 
zation depends immediately upon institutions, and, at the 
next remove, upon individuals. 

As creators of Institutions, therefore, the study I have 
proposed is to us of great moment. None of us lives unto 
himself, or for the present time only. Your and my 
thinking and acting concern, in the first instance, your 
and my personal characters ; and then, our fellow beings 
who are directly associated with us. But our functions as 
members of Society make us in some measure, — not 
rarely make us in an important degree, — -shapers of legisla- 
tion, workers in literature, promoters of education, directors 
of religious and ethical movements, counsellors in dealing 
with the poor, the diseased, the insane, and many others 
of the helpless classes of Society. In these relations we 
inevitably become creators and arbiters of Institutions to 
which, far remote from the spheres of our personal 
influence, for the present and for the future, wise and 
ignorant ; faithless and believing ; orderly and criminal ; all 
subjects of the State ; all members of the Church ; readers 
of the Press; pupils of the Schools; and followers of Custom, 
are subjected. 

Let the study of Philosophy be honored among a people, 



1887 



THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY 



313 



and the Institutions which give motive and guidance to 
the whole social organism will gradually take shape in 
accordance with the enlarging, ennobled thought and life 
following this supreme study, and thus become, more and 
more, sources of beneficence for the present and for the 
future, too. 

The surest hope for human progress lies in cherishing, 
and in seeking to realise, ideals. The best and the 
farthest progress made hitherto by mankind has come from 
following the Ideal of Philosophy together w T ith the ideals 
which the Philosophic Ideal has brought into being. 
History abounds in illustrations of the truth of this asser- 
tion. The peoples who have led in the forward move- 
ments of Humanity have shown, when in the lead, an 
exalted philosophic mood and aim. The correlation of the 
movements of philosophic thought and social progress, 
stagnation or retrogression, is clearly seen in those historic 
epochs which opened with the rise of Philosophy in Greece 
twenty-five hundred years ago, and are yet in progress in 
the civilization of Europe and America. The political and 
literary glory of Greece ; the triumph and fall of Eome ; the 
intellectual servility of Medieval Europe ; the many revolu- 
tions, ecclesiastical, political and social, in which the Middle 
Ages closed, — such as the Renaissance in science and in art ; 
the disintegration of Feudalism ; the advance of the Pro- 
testant Reformation ; the outburst of the French Revolution, 
and the rise of the American Democracy ; — these were all 
effects of dominant, antecedent philosophic moods 
more or less remote, through which social institutions 
were made good or bad, and thus agents of w 7 eal or 
woe to the peoples which then were. 

Moreover, the social, industrial, political problems which 
are constantly pressing for solution now, and which, at 
times seem to threaten the welfare of the whole of 
Humanity bring before us with special commendation 
such attempts as I have proposed. Never was there a 
time when, for the sake of social institutions, the study of 
Philosophy should be more earnestly pursued than now. 
The prospect for a happy issue for the Social Organism 
from its present perils lies, I believe, in a clearer and much 



314 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PAET II 



more widely spread apprehension of the supreme Intel- 
lectual Ideal, and the development, throughout Society, of 
the personal virtues which I have set forth as consequences 
of a true study of Philosophy. In the direction here 
pointed out, lies the way for such an improvement, or such 
building anew, of the Institutions which direct Society, that 
coming generations shall be wiser, better, happier, and 
more peaceful than the mankind of the present, or of the 
past. 

Because of these, and yet other, reasons, I believe it to 
be not only my privilege but my duty to attempt to make 
with you a further contribution towards a realization of the 
Philosophic Ideal. To man's loftiest vision, for ages, the 
Universe has appeared as a perfect organism of matter, of 
force, of thought, of life, — of an infinite Variety infinitely 
related in Unity. 

Is the vision one of Eeality ? Is it true ? Whatever the 
reply we may venture to make to this question, this at least 
is true ; that, since the vision was opened, the human mind 
has, either with full assurance, or in act, held it to be a 
revelation of the truth. Growing knowledge, as it is 
embodied in the many sciences, has added growing 
confirmation to this sublime assumption of the Reason. 

"With every approach towards the realization of the 
Philosophic Ideal, the more at rest Man's mind tends to 
be. Only as Man fails to find a disclosing Unity in his 
search after knowledge is his deepest mental need left 
unsatisfied. My own conviction is, that there is a way by 
which the mind, if it can become sure of anything, can 
be assured that the Philosophic Ideal springs from a vision 
of Eeality. And I believe that human reflection and 
research will at some time, far or near, make it clear that 
there is no alternative to a full assurance of the truth of 
this intuition. The fulfilment of our intellectual privilege 
and duty is to be found, I am confident, in our following 
on whither the Philosophic Ideal leads. 



1887 



PHILOSOPHY IN HISTOEY 



315 



SECOND LECTURE 

Philosophy in the Present Age. 
i. 

philosophy in history 

Man's effort to realize the transcendent Intellectual Ideal 
has produced, as I have said, a large number of systems, or 
expressions of thought, each bearing the common name, 
Philosophy ; all of them making more or less pretension to 
philosophic progress, or finality. As a preparation for our 
proposed venture towards the same end, let us to-day look, 
— though of necessity very briefly, — at the present status 
of the Ideal of Philosophy. 

Let us see, if we may, in the many philosophical sys- 
tems taught and followed at the present time, just what 
has become of the supreme Ideal common to them all. An 
intelligent result of this examination will do at least this for 
us ; it will show how much and how little has been done 
to realize the Philosophic Aim ; thereby it will indicate the 
direction in which further philosophic progress may be 
made. Our immediate study, therefore, is a review of the 
Modern History of Philosophy under guidance of the 
Philosophic Ideal. 

I take as our starting point an event midway in that 
marvellous century, the Fifteenth, in which the Middle 
Ages of Europe were closing, and when the forces which 
have shaped the Modern Era had begun to have marked 
influence. 

For hundreds of years previously, the civil, social, intel- 
lectual and religious life of Western Europe had been 
subjected to the sway of the Roman Papacy. But with 
the opening of the Fourteenth Century, the Papal auto- 
cracy had reached its culmination and had already begun 
to decline. Scholasticism, the unquestioning service of the 
intellect to Ecclesiastical dogma, had already weakened and 
was nearing dissolution. As the Fifteenth Century ap- 
proached, Thought — if I may personify the intellectual 
forces of the time — more and more boldly resisted the 
Scholastic assumptions, and claimed independence of 



316 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PART II 



hierarchic direction ; and there appeared in the middle 
of the Fifteenth Century one agency which, more than 
any other, hastened the completion of the emancipation. 
That was the intellectual revolution following what is called 
" The Eevival of Letters/' 

On account of the downfall of Constantinople in 1453, 
and the consequent danger which threatened Greece from 
the invading Turks, a number of Greek scholars went to 
Italy. There, they did a great deal to stimulate and to 
guide a newly initiated study of the ancient Classics. A 
general increase of industrial and commercial activity, with 
consequent material prosperity, had for some time been 
taking place. Secular culture, as distinguished from the 
preceding prevailing religious culture, had well advanced 
along with the increasing industrial prosperity. Gradually, 
in Art, Science, and in Philosophy, the independent, pro- 
gressive mood of ancient times revived. Nearly contem- 
porary with the Eevival of Letters was the invention of 
printing. The printing press was used to give wide cir- 
culation to the results of the new thinking. 

But we need not follow in detail the history of the 
Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. In the main, this 
period shows a rapidly increasing revolt in all directions 
against the Medieval order of things. In particular, 
philosophic thought, outside the range of Papal interference, 
became more and more independent of Medieval tradition 
and dogma. Eeason was made intellectual arbiter. The 
mind took upon itself responsibility for its conclusions. 
Little was done for Philosophy, however, during these two 
centuries, aside from a preparatory mental emancipation. 
No original investigation appeared. No school of philo- 
sophic thought was established. No new method was 
proposed. The emancipated intellect found ample scope 
for its philosophic energy in study of the writings of the 
ancient Greek masters, as recovered in the original 
language. 

Through this first period in the Modern Era, — that of the 
Eenaissance, — philosophic need was gratified almost wholly 
in reproductions of the thinking of Aristotle, of Plato, 
and of some others of the thinkers of a far past. No 



1887 PHILOSOPHY IN HISTORY 317 



noticeable attempt was made even to adapt the old 
speculations to the requirements of the new era. 

It was not until the opening of the Seventeenth 
Century that the original, creative, prolific epoch we now 
know as that of Modern Philosophy really began. To 
the emancipated thought, first, Scholasticism had become 
practically non-existent. Then, the ancient systems had 
been reproduced in their literalism and had gradually lost 
authority. Intellectual activity had been diverted from 
mere speculation to the domain of facts. Nature and 
Experience had begun to receive an honor which had been 
denied them for many centuries. At last, stimulated by a 
new view of Nature ; one which had been enlarged by the 
discovery of the American continent ; which had been 
immeasurably more magnified by the revelations of Galileo's 
telescope, by Kepler's discovery of the laws of planetary 
motion, and by the Copernican theory of the Solar 
domain ; actuated, too, by the rapid and great develop- 
ment of Natural Science in many other directions, the freed 
thought at length found original and masterful expression. 

Two commanding thinkers appeared : two leaders, among 
those who know, now acknowledged to have been the 
Founders of Modern Philosophy ; the English Francis Bacon 
(1560-1626), and the French Bene Descartes (1596-1650). 
In the work of these two minds the development of Phil- 
osophy began anew ; and it has continued with momentous 
relations down to the present day. 

Kecall some of the notable changes in this memorable 
Philosophic Movement. Bacon and Descartes were in 
spirit and aim much alike. Both were possessed by the 
one spirit which had emancipated modern Europe ; the 
spirit which Wndelband names, " the humanistic opposi- 
tion to Scholasticism, " and which Erdmann describes as " a 
denial of the existing order of things and a protest against 
it." And both had the aim of establishing for the human 
mind a method by which certain knowledge may be 
attained, and human welfare furthered. But beyond this 
common intellectual freedom,— their search for the perfect 
intellectual method and their humanitarian aims, — they 
were, in relation to Philosophy, markedly unlike. 



318 



MID-LIFE MEMOEABILIA PABT II 



While these two creative thinkers were the founders, or 
sources, of Modern Philosophy, the three hundred years 
which have passed since their time, show that from them 
there was a parting of ways, on each of which the Philosophic 
Ideal has been borne to the present day, oftentimes to its 
honor, and often to its peril, To speak more explicitly : Lord 
Bacon is distinguished in the history of Philosophy as having 
confined thought to an observing and an experimenting in- 
vestigation of Nature ; Descartes is famed for having aimed, 
by reflection to discover in the human Consciousness the fun- 
damental principles of knowledge. George Henry Lewes 
says of Bacon, " The influence he exercised over succeeding 
generations has been that of a steady opposition to all 
speculation not comprised within the sphere of physics. 
His title, — his great and glorious title, — is that of Father 
of Experimental Philosophy, — E'ather of Positive Science. 
Bacon stands at the head of the Inductive, a posteriori 
movement, and is claimed by men of science as their 
leader. Descartes stands at the head of the Deduc- 
tive, a priori, movement, and is claimed by all metaphy- 
sicians as their leader, To Descartes, therefore, belongs 
the title of Father of Modern Philosophy ; " that is, 
of Philosophy as identified with Metaphysics. 

The motive force in the age which was opening at the 
time Bacon and Descartes lived, — that which has been 
called "the Modern Spirit" was operative to an exceptional 
degree in Lord Bacon. Bacon gave best expression to the 
longings dominant in the recently emancipated Thought. 
Probably there was never in human experience so keen a 
sense of intellectual poverty as there was in Europe at the 
close of the Middle Ages. Beleased from its bondage, 
Mind had become conscious of immeasurable want. What 
had been called Science was discovered to be almost 
empty of knowledge. The reaction from Scholastic specu- 
lation had become complete, and the neglected facts of 
Nature and Experience were given an exalted honor. 
Consequently, when Lord Bacon asserted that Nature and 
Experience are the sole spheres of knowledge, and urged 
seekers after truth to approach these realms with " the 
humility of the spirit of the little child," he was a satis- 



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PHILOSOPHY IN HISTORY 



319 



fying interpreter of the wants most felt in the new 

a § e - ... 

Dr. Schwegler says; in his " History of Philosophy/' 

" Bacon directed anew the observation and reflection of his 
contemporaries to actual fact, and proximately to nature ; 
he raised experience, which had hitherto been only a 
matter of chance, into a separate and independent object 
of thought, and he awoke a general consciousness of its 
indispensable necessity. To have established the principles 
of empirical science, a thinking exploration of nature, this 
is his merit." And a merit, almost without measure, it is, 
so far as Lord Bacon's work opened the way for the 
marvellous development of the sciences, which has taken 
place in the last two centuries ; and so far as it has helped 
along the mechanical, industrial, and social humanization 
of modern times. This part of Lord Bacon's influence 
well deserves the praise lavished upon it by Lord Macaulay, 
the most brilliant of England's essayists, 

But the effects of the Novum Organum have not been 
confined to a thinking exploration of Nature, and to further- 
ing the physical amelioration of Mankind. The Baconian 
method has been the directing force in that part of the 
philosophic development of the modern age known as 
Empiricism ; that is, Philosophy set forth as drawing all 
its material from Experience : — more specifically, Philo- 
sophy based wholly upon experience in Sensation. Person- 
ally, Lord Bacon was not an empiricist in the description 
of the term just given. But Empiricism, as now 
understood, was the historic outcome of the working of his 
method. In 1620, the Novum Organum was published. 

Thirty years afterwards, Thomas Hobbes, once intimate 
friend of, and translator for, Lord Bacon, published works 
in which, by a leap, Empiricism was carried to its farthest 
conclusions. Lewes called him " the precursor of modern 
Materialism." Hobbes had onlv an insignificant influence 
upon contemporary philosophic thinking ; but he is partic- 
ularly worthy of notice here, for the reason that he shows 
the full result for Philosophy of the working of his friend's 
principles ; and because both the Materialists and the 



320 



MID-LIFE MEMOEABILIA 



PART II 



Exclusive Phenomenalists of the present time look back to 
him as their fore-runner and prophet. 

Next : less than seventy years after the appearance of 
the Novum Organim, the epoch-making work in Philo- 
sophic Empiricism, the Essay upon the Human Under- 
standing (1689) was produced. It was written by John 
Locke, the real initiator of the working of the Baconian 
principles in Philosophy ; a thinker famous as having met 
better than any other, the needs of the thought of his time. 
Through the " Essay," Locke became the leader of the 
philosophic movements . of the Eighteenth Century in 
Western Europe. Until the century neared its close his 
influence overpowered any opposed thought. Sir James 
Mackintosh wrote, " If Bacon first discovered the rules by 
which knowledge is improved, Locke most contributed to 
make mankind at large observe thern." In fact, Locke 
philosophized for Baconianism ; he became the typical 
exponent of the Inductive method in the domain of 
Experience, which domain he described as sensation and 
reflection. Locke had set for himself the task of inquiring 
into " the original certainty, and extent, of human know- 
ledge." The result of his work was that the human mind 
is, at first, just "like white paper, void of all characters," 
without any ideas ; that all our knowledge is founded 
upon experience and is ultimately derived from it ; that 
" our observation employed, whether about sensible 
objects, or about the internal operations of our minds 
perceived and reflected on by ourselves, is that which 
supplies our understandings with all the materials of think- 
ing. These two are the fountains of knowledge from 
whence all the ideas we have, or can naturally have, do 
spring." But, immediately after ascribing to man these 
two sources of knowledge, Locke declared, " a man begins 
to have ideas, when he first has any sensation. v To Locke, 
therefore, Eeflection was but Sensation remembered. 
Human experience ultimately, therefore, is confined to 
Sensation. By nature, therefore, the human mind is a 
perfect blank ; and sense experience is the source whence 
comes all its materials for knowing. 

After Locke had pointed out the path, Empiricism was 



» 



1887 



PHILOSOPHY IN HI STOP Y 



321 



hastened rapidly onward to its logical outcome. Locke 
himself did not follow his principles to their legitimate, 
final conclusions ; but it was not long before there were 
others more logically consistent David Hartley, for 
example, who is honored as the founder of the English 
school of " Associational Psychology," in his Observation 
on Man appearing in 1749, accepted Locke's principles 
that the mind, before sensation, is a tabula rasa. He re- 
duced all mental phenomena to material terms. He 
called Sensation, the result of molecular vibration in the 
brain. Hartley was far from being what is understood as 
a professed materialist. On the contrary, he emphatically 
insisted upon his own faith in supernatural religion. He 
has been named " a great philosopher and a good man." 
But it is not difficult to see whither such Philosophy as 
that which had led his mind was tending. As a notable 
consequence of exclusive attention to sense experience, 
Hartley had declared that " not only conscience, but the 
religious emotions also," are entirely " developments from 
Sensation." 

As we read more widely the history of Philosophy 
during the Eighteenth Century, we are compelled to be- 
lieve that one of the inevitable tendencies of Empiricism, 
as directed by Lccke, was towards complete philosophical 
Materialism. True, Bishop Berkeley lived in the first half 
of the Eighteenth Century and was a student of Locke. 
Empiricism with him appeared to end in just the opposite 
of Materialism : " that is, in a purely subjective Idealism. 
But Berkeley was not under the guidance of Locke only. 
He was intellectually under the influence of the method of 
Descartes as well as that of Lord Bacon. The leading of 
Locke, as shown by the conclusions of his disciples, was 
directly towards Materialism, as we shall see ; or if not to 
Materialism, then, as an alternative, into complete dis- 
belief in the attainment of real knowledge. In other 
words, the legitimate issue in Philosophy of Empiricism 
was either belief in matter as the universal Principle 
sought for because of the supreme Intellectual Ideal, or 
it was complete Skepticism. 

It is not within the scope of this lecture for us to con- 



322 



MID-LIFE MEMOEABILIA PAET II 



sider at length the negations of the Philosophic Ideal, al- 
though they are indirect evidence of the universal presence of 
the Ideal in the process of human thought. It may be well, 
however, to recall the names of two representative skeptics 
appearing under the influence of Locke's Empiricism, — 
Voltaire (1694-1778), and David Hume (1711-1776). 

Voltaire, disciple of Hobbes and Locke, was in England 
at the beginning of the second quarter of the Eighteenth 
Century. Returning to France, he introduced there Locke's 
thought. He named himself the " Ignorant Philosopher/' 
Religiously, Voltaire was not a disbeliever. He opposed the 
Materialism developing around him in France. As a 
philanthropist, he did much for his age. Yet his memory 
is that of a great skeptic. Erdmann, although saying 
much to relieve Voltaire from the opprobrium which has 
been heaped upon him, adds, " He denied nothing, but 
undermined everything. " 

Of far greater importance in relation to our subject is the 
work of David Hume, a genuine philosophic skeptic, and 
the great exponent of philosophic Skepticism in the last 
century. Hume's work had possibly the most far-reaching 
influence, and, — through the reaction which took place 
soon after it was effected, — the most important results, in 
the development of modern Empiricism. His Treatise 
on Human Nature appeared in 1737. To Hume, 
Bacon and Locke were the greatest among philosophers. 
In his estimate of Hume, Lewes says, " Locke had 
shown that all our knowledge w 7 as dependent upon 
experience. Berkeley had shown that we had no ex- 
perience of an external world independent of perception ; 
nor could w 7 e have any such experience. He pronounced 
Matter, therefore, to be a figment. Hume took up the 
line where Berkeley had cast it, and flung it once more 
into the deep sea, endeavoring to fathom the mysteries of 
being. Probing deeper in the direction Berkeley had 
taken, he found that not only was Matter a figment, but 
Mind was no less so. — Matter is but a collection of 
impressions. Mind is but a succession of impressions and 
ideas. Thus was Berkeley's dogmatic Idealism connected 
with Skepticism." Lewes explains further on, " This 



1887 



PHILOSOPHY IN HISTORY 



323 



skepticism, the reader must acknowledge has nothing very 
alarming in it except to Philosophy." " It only destroys 
the now somewhat feeble pretension that Metaphysics 
can be a science. It destroys Philosophy only to direct all 
our energies towards Positive Science." 

Let us, however, return from this byway to the main 
path traversed in the development of Locke's Empiricism. 
That was, as said before, towards complete Philosophic 
Materialism. The most notable changes in philosophic 
development towards this goal took place in France. A 
glance at that must suffice now. The first name to be 
noted is .that of the Catholic Abbe, Condillac (1715-1780). 
In 1748, in an Essay upon the Origin of Human 
Knowledge, Condillac set up Locke as the intellectual leader 
of the age. The fundamental principle in this essay was 
that of Locke ; that " sensations " and the " operations of 
the mind " are " the materials of ail our knowledge." 
Later, in 1754, in his Treatise on Sensations Condillac, 
as says Lewes, "quitted Locke's principle for that of 
Gassendi (1592-1695) and Hobbes." Windelband re- 
marks that skeptical Sensualism, as domesticated among 
his countrymen by Voltaire, became " the fundamental 
note of the French Enlightenment ;" and that Condillac, 
"who at the beginning had only expounded Locke's 
doctrine and defended it against other systems, professed 
his adherence to this skeptical Sensualism " in his 
influential treatise on Sensation. Condillac quoted, accept- 
ing it for his own purposes, Aristotle's maxim, " There is 
nothing in the intellect which was not previously in the 
senses ; " and he claimed that not only is " all our 
knowledge, but that all our faculties, also, are derived 
from the senses, or, to speak more accurately, from 
sensations." He did not profess himself a materialist, but 
" the sum and substance of Condillac's theory of know- 
ledge," says Erdmann. " may be expressed in the formula : 
— Penser est sentir." 

A further onward movement of Empiricism towards 
complete Materialism was made by Helvetius, in 1753, in 
his work, L'Esprit, a work condemned by the civil 
authorities for its adjudged evil moral influence. Happi- 



324 



MID-LIFE MEMOEABILIA PART II 



ness, he described, as the largest possible amount of 
physical pleasure. Egoism is the rule of all action. All 
learning rests upon self-love. There are no virtues but 
those which are political. Much more to the same effect 
was proposed by him. 

In the second half of the Eighteenth Century, by rapid 
steps, the Empirical method of philosophising reached its 
full development in the direction of Materialism. There 
was, next to Helvetius in logical descent, Jean d'Alembert, 
editor of the famous " Encyclopedia of the Sciences," 
w 7 hose publication was begun in Paris, in 1751. Alem- 
bert wrote the introduction to the Encyclopedia. He was 
an advocate of selfishness as a rule of life. He was, 
however, more of a skeptic than materialist ; and, as his 
colleague Diderot became pronounced as an upholder of 
Materialism, he withdrew from his editorial chair. From 
the seventh volume of the Encyclopedia, Diderot (1713- 
1784) conducted the work, and in his writings appeared a 
completed speculative Materialism. 

But it was in the writings of Lamettrie (1709-1751), 
and of Baron d'Holbach (1723-1789), that the final 
outcome of Modern Empiricism took place, not only as a 
matter of speculation, but as thing of practical ethics also. 
Diderot induced Lamettrie to become an author. In 
Berlin, while reader to Frederick the Great, Lamettrie 
composed his most notable works. In them, he set forth, 
as the sum of man's attempts to know, that " what is 
called mind is a part of the body, namely the brain, which 
on account of its finer muscles, gives birth to finer products 
than the extremities. When it ceases to be active, ' la farce 
est joaee ; 9 and the fact that it is destined to pass away, is 
an exhortation to us to take our pleasure when we can." 

In the Systeme cle la 'Nature which Baron d'Hol- 
bach produced in 1770, the movement of Empiricism 
towards Materialism came to an end. Or, we may say, 
the search for a realization of the Ideal of Philosophy in 
that direction, for the time it least, was over with. Materi- 
alism appeared at last as, what Windelband describes, "a 
purely dogmatic metaphysics." That is to say " He who 
talks of idea and will, of Soul and God, thinks of nervous 



1887 



PHILOSOPHY IN HISTORY 



325 



activity, of his body and the world over again, in an 
abstract form. This is no longer a piquant play of thoughts, 
but a heavy armed attack upon all belief in the immaterial 
world." 

For a time, then, in France in the Eighteenth Century, 
Materialism, as an explanation of the Universe, seemed to 
engross philosophic thought. The philosophers of Mate- 
rialism believed that the philosophic quest had been met. 
It was held by them that there is but One Substance in 
the Universe, and that that substance is active Matter. 
The World and all it contains are the result of this activity. 
Man, therefore, is simply an organic, perishable material 
being. Soul is brain. Consciousness is but a form of 
Sensation. The highest aim of life is service to self-in- 
terest ; the chief good is self-gratification. God is a fiction, 
created by fear and ignorance. 

So far, therefore, as the principle and the method of 
Lord Bacon and Locke were wrought out in Philosophic 
Speculation, up to the close of the Eighteenth Century, it 
culminated, as an era, in complete philosophic Skepticism 
and absolute Materialism. 

From this point we return to the early part of the 
Seventeenth Century, to the time of Bacon and Descartes. 
Thence let us follow the course of the Philosophic Ideal 
along the path which the French leader of the newly 
emancipated thought opened for it. " The program of the 
Experience philosophy was laid down by Bacon, " says 
Windelband. " Much more comprehensive was the form 
in which Descartes brought together the scientific move- 
ment of his time to establish Bationalism anew, by filling 
the scholastic system of conceptions with the rich content " 
of the researches induced by Galileo, Descartes, like 
Bacon, gave an answer to the needs of his time ; he led 
many who had broken with the authority of the Middle 
Ages. He wrote in his Meclitationes (1641), "I have 
always thought that the two questions, of the existence of 
God and of the nature of the soul, were the chief of those 
which ought to be demonstrated rather by Philosophy 
than by Theology." 



326 



MID-LIFE MEMOEABTLIA 



PAET II 



But, free and rationalistic like Bacon though Descartes 
was, his attitude towards the "Problem of Thought/' that is, 
the field and instrument of knowledge, was quite different 
from that of the English thinker. Descartes was, no less 
than Bacon, interested in, and he was, more than Bacon, 
active in, the development of the sciences. Like Bacon, 
he sought means by which to ameliorate the physical 
welfare of Mankind. He was an eminent mathematician 
and physicist. But, in his search for perfect certainty, to 
which he was compelled early in life by an irrepressible 
longing to know " how to distinguish truth from falsehood, 
in order to be clear about his actions and to walk sure- 
footedly in this life," he was led into speculations and con- 
clusions which separated him in intellectual operations 
widely from Bacon, and made him the inaugurator of an 
epoch in Philosophy which, in many respects, was diamet- 
rically opposed to that shaped by the Inductive method. 

Being wholly dissatisfied with traditional thought, 
Descartes set himself to investigating that he might learn 
where assured knowledge is to be found. Nothing less 
than " absolute certainty " was to satisfy him. He deter- 
mined, therefore, to give no assent to any propositions 
except those whose certainty is perfectly clear ; which can- 
not, therefore, be doubted. Professor Huxley thus charact- 
erized Descartes' position : — " he consecrated Doubt." 
" Descartes was the first among moderns to strip off all 
his beliefs and reduce himself to a state of intellectual 
nakedness, until such time as he could satisfy himself 
which were fit to be worn." Descartes' own description 
of his position was this : — " I did not imitate the skeptics 
who doubt only for doubting's sake and pretend to be al- 
ways undecided ; on the contrary, my whole intention was 
to arrive at certainty." His position was thus at the 
antipodes of that of Hume. Hume ended his inquiries in 
Skepticism. Descartes questioned in order that in the end 
he might have Certainty. 

In his " Discourse " (1637),on the method for guiding 
the Reason in search of truth, he showed the progress of 
his thought to this end. " I had long observed that for 
the sake of morals, it is sometimes necessary to follow 



1887 



PHILOSOPHY IN HISTORY 



327 



opinions that one knows to be very uncertain, just as if 
they were indisputable. But when I was desirous to be 
occupied only in the search of truth, I thought that I 
w T as bound to take exactly the opposite course, and to 
reject as absolutely false everything wherever I could 
imagine the least doubt, in order that I might see whether 
there did not remain at last, in my belief, something 
which was entirely indisputable. - - - - I resolved to 
feign that all the things which had ever entered into my 
mind were not more true than the illusions of my dreams. 
But I perceived immediately while I was wishing thus to 
think that everything was false, it was inevitable that I, 
who thought it, should be something. And remarking 
that this truth, ' 1 think, therefore I am,' was so firm and 
ascertained, that all the most extravagant suppositions of 
the skeptic were not capable of shaking it, I decided that 
I might receive it without scruple as the first principle of 
the philosophy for which I was seeking." 

Upon this foundation Descartes erected his epoch- 
making work. From here it w 7 as that the diverging ways 
for the movement of the Philosophic Ideal in the Present 
Age took their departure. From Bacon and Locke it was 
borne onward into a more and more exclusive Empiricism, 
with all the logical tendencies and issues of Empiricism 
finding at length full expression. From Descartes it was 
carried forward into a more and more complete nation- 
alism, manifested in a widely extended and complex 
variety of forms. 

The influence of Descartes spread with great rapidity 
and widely along the west coast of Europe. In France, in 
the Netherlands, in England, and even into Sweden his 
fame extended. It was evident to thoughtful men that a 
leader, — indeed a creator, — in thought, had appeared. 
Within a half century after the appearance of his "Dis- 
course on Method," Descartes was honored by disciples 
whose w 7 ork formed a definite period in philosophic 
progress. 

The first distinct effect of the new teaching was a move- 
ment called " Cartesianism," or, more specifically, "Oc- 
casionalism." Its chief representatives were the Ley den 



328 MID-LIFE MEMOEABILIA PART II 



professor Geulincx (1625-1669), and the Sorbonne graduate 
and priest, Malebranche (1638-1715). 

Beading over the history of the influence of Descartes, 
we find ourselves, from the outset, in an intellectual at- 
mosphere almost entirely unlike that which we have met in 
our following the work of Bacon and Locke. Cartesianism 
became at once a Theosophy in Philosophy. It set forth 
the Philosophic Ideal, as realiz ed in God, in harmony with 
views of Man and the World peculiar to its own specula- 
tions. According to Geulincx, the soul and body of man 
can have no life, or motion in relation to each other, except 
as God is their direct agent, using the affections of one as 
the occasion for affecting the other. According to 
Malebranche, God is the absolute Substance ; contains all 
things in Himself ; and sees all things in Himself, expres- 
sive of their true nature and being. It is God," therefore, 
who is the means of mediating between the Ego and the 
World. 

The extreme development of the philosophic motive 
made under the direct guidance of Descartes was reached 
in the speculations of Baruch de Spinoza (1632-1677). 
Rev. F. D. Maurice, in his exposition of Descartes' thought, 
says, " When Descartes reflected on his fundamental 
proposition " (Cognito ergo sum) "he perceived that the 
certainty of it lay only in the clearness of his perception 
that Being was necessary to Thought." Spinoza finally 
described Substance as " that which requires for its 
existence the existence of nothing else." In this (highest) 
sense only God is Substance. " Spinoza started from the 
Cartesian doctrine of Substance/' wrote Dr. Schwegler. 
Spinoza himself expressed his intellectual apprehension of 
the only One Substance that can exist, the absolutely in- 
finite One Being, in these words,— " I understand by God, 
a being absolutely infinite ; that is, Substance consisting of 
infinite attributes, whereof each one expresses Eternal and 
Infinite Being." This thought receives definite explication, 
making it directly illustrative of the point we have here 
under discussion, in Pollacks comment, " The first and 
leading idea in Spinoza's philosophy — the only part of it, 
in fact, which has at all entered into the notion commonly 



1SS7 



PHILOSOPHY IN HISTORY 



329 



formed of his system — is that of the Unity and Uniformity 
of the World." 

Here, then, we have the method, and, in large part, the 
matter of Descartes' work carried to their final conclusions. 
Geulincx and Malebranche were not widely separated 
from their leader. They followed him not in spirit only 
but in letter, too. To them God, the ultimate One, is the 
Creator, Upholder, and omnipresent Worker ; but to 
Spinoza God is "the universal Essence, or nature of things. " 
According to Geulincx and Malebranche, " God creates the 
world by his Will;" according to Spinoza, the World 
" follows necessarily from the nature of God." With 
Spinoza, the word Cause does not mean, " God creates the 
world," but " God is the w 7 orld." Dr. Martineau in his 
study of Spinoza remarks on the identification by Spinoza 
of Nature, God, and Substance : — " Under ' Nature ' we 
are expected to think of the continuous source of birth \ 
under 'God/ of the universal cause of created things; 
under 1 Substance,' of the permanent reality behind 
phenomena. " After this manner Spinoza believed him- 
self to have realized the Ideal of Philosophy. 

At this point, therefore, we meet with the interesting 
fact that, at the very outset of the movement of Modern 
Philosophy, Thomas Hobbes, Lord Bacon's friend, and, — 
although he never acknowledged himself under intellectual 
obligation to Bacon, — Lord Bacon's disciple, was contrasted 
w 7 ith a philosophic opponent, standing at an opposite ex- 
treme in thought, — Spinoza, Descartes' pupil and expositor. 
Empiricism and Idealism at the outset found their culmi- 
nation in universal Unity, either of Matter or of Spirit. 

Cartesianism as culminating in Spinoza's system of 
Philosophy did not, however, find full acceptance among 
contemporary thinkers. In fact, the next movement in 
philosophic development in the path opened by Descartes 
was, in a measure, a swerving away from Spinozism. This 
movement was led by Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibnitz 
(1616-1716), a German, a friend of Spinoza and student 
of Descartes' writings. The most important contributions 
Leibnitz made to the development of Philosophy appeared 
at the opening of the Eighteenth Century in his " New 



330 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PART II 



Essays upon the Human Understanding " criticising 
Locke's famous " Essays " on the same subject, and also 
in his " Theodicy. " Leibnitz sought to find a middle way 
for Philosophy. He wished to avoid what he believed to 
be Spinoza's extreme attitude, and still more the extreme 
position to which Empiricism had been carried. It was 
he who modified the popular maxim, — " There is nothing 
in the intellect which is not first in the senses/' by adding 
the shrewd comment, " except the intellect itself." This 
declaration separated him from Locke. He was separated 
from Spinoza by his view of Substance. In Spinoza's 
Universal Unity no real Plurality had been given place. 
But Leibnitz, as Dr. Schwegler comments, held that 
" there is a plurality of monads " (individual units of 
Substance) " which constitutes the element of all Keality, 
the fundamental being of the whole physical Universe." 

During the first half of the Eighteenth Century, in 
Germany at least, Philosophy, as conceived by Leibnitz, 
led in all philosophical activity. 

It found expositors largely under the guidance of the 
Halle professor, Christian von Wolff (1679-1754), who 
systematised and somewhat modified the writings of his 
teacher. But the influence of Leibnitz at that time was 
not much felt outside of Germany ; and, indeed in 
Germany, it soon ceased to be of much importance. As 
we have seen, Empiricism became the dominant force in 
philosophising in Western Europe through most of the last 
century. It was not until the century neared its close 
that any decisive break with the prevailing Empiricism 
took place. 

II. 

CRITICISM IN MODEEN PHILOSOPHY. 

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), a German of Scottish 
ancestry, was the thinker who inaugurated what we may 
call the Present Age in philosophic development. His 
work is characterized by Dr. Albert Schwegler in his 
" Handbook on the History of Philosophy " in this 
manner : — " Idealism and Realism have both ended in 
one-sided extremes. To realism matter was one-sidedly 



1887 CRITICISM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY 331 



absolute, to idealism the empirical ego. — But now Kant 
appeared and again united in a common bed the two 
branches that, isolated from each other, seemed on the 
point of being lost in the sands. Kant is the great 
restorer of philosophy, again conjoining into unity and 
totality the one-sided philosophical endeavors of those 
who preceded him." Dr. W. Windelband says of Kant, 
after describing his all-sided study of the philosophical, 
religious and scientific speculations of his time ; — " It was 
in connection with the difficulties of the problem of 
knowledge that Kant wrought out from all these founda- 
tion elements the work which gave him his peculiar 
significance. " The philosophic Rationalism of the time 
failed to satisfy him. " But the more, also, w r as his vision 
sharpened for the limitations of that philosophy w 7 hich 
Empiricism developed by the aid of the psychological 
method. In studying David Hume, this came to his 
consciousness in such a degree that he grasped eagerly for 
the aid which the Nouvedux Essais of Leibnitz seemed to 
offer toward making a metaphysical science possible." 

Finding no permanent satisfaction in this direction, 
Kant began for himself a study of the origin, extent and 
limits of human knowledge. For ten years or more he 
worked earnestly at this problem. In 1781, the first 
results of his work appeared, the " Critique of Pure 
Reason," — an essay which distinctly marked an epoch in 
Philosophy ; an epoch in some respects as important for 
philosophic Rationalism as Locke's ''Essay on the Human 
Understanding " had been for philosophic speculation con- 
fined to sense experience. The " Critique " was a mighty 
awakener and emancipator. Kant says that the effect of 
Hume upon himself was to arouse him from his dogmatic 
slumber : not, however, to lead him into a new bondage, 
but to excite him to independent and free research. The 
critical path was opened for him. What he did in that 
direction he made known in the i£ Critique." He called 
his work a footpath which those who came after him 
might convert into a highway, by which, " — what many 
centuries were unable to effect ; what, indeed, was impos- 
sible before,— there shall be attained complete satisfac- 



332 



MID-LIFE MEMOBABILIA PAET II 



tion for human reason in that which has always occupied 
its curiosity, but always hitherto in vain." 

Kant believed that he had begun a revolution in Phil- 
osophy comparable with that started by Copernicus in 
Science. He opened his " Critique " with this sentence : 
— " That all our knowledge begins with experience there 
can be no doubt. But," continued he, " though all our 
knowledge begins with experience, it by no means follows 
that all arises out of experience." In those words the 
principle of the new era found clear expression. The 
material of knowledge comes to the mind in experience ; 
that must be acknowledged. But in our knowledge there 
are a priori factors too ; forms giving shape to the material 
there ; " we use notions in experience, but, provided for 
experience a priori in the mind." 

What was the effect of the Critical Philosophy ? So ex- 
traordinary that among his own countrymen Kant was 
for the time master, almost without rival, to those 
who were interested in the higher intellectual, ethical, 
esthetic and religious problems. Among other peoples his 
method and conclusions speedily gained an influence which 
has made the present age in Philosophy that of Criticism. 
In its literalism, Kant's masterful achievement did not 
prove to be a finality, or long remain authoritative, but it 
had brought about a speculative revolution. 

His attempt to remove the antagonism between Em- 
piricism and Rationalism was not long accepted as 
successful. He had not found a satisfying reconciliation 
for things that are antagonistic. Indeed, he had not risen 
to the height to which the Philosophic Ideal had already 
led thought. He had done away with mere Empiricism 
in Philosophy, but he had not given to the Reason a full 
acknowledgement of its rights and work. There was in 
his " Critique " a latent parting of ways which soon 
appeared in. the thought of those who became his disciples. 
Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel in one direction, and Herbart 
and his school in the other, were the men who did most 
to put asunder that which Kant believed had been united 
by his " Critique 99 forever. 



1887 PHILOSOPHY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTUBY 333 



III. 

GLIMPSES OF PHILOSOPHY 
IN 

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

It is outside the scope of this lecture to describe at length 
the complex development that Philosophy has under gone 
since the work of Kant. It is sufficient to indicate merely 
the course it took. With Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel pure 
Idealism, under the names, respectively, of Subjective, 
Objective, and Absolute Idealism was again enthroned. 

With Fichte (1762-1814), the first principle assumed 
was the Ego, given in consciousness with a certainty 
beyond question. The Ego cannot be transcended. 
" Thou art, thyself, the Thing-in-itself ; — all that thou seest 
without thee, thou art even thyself." This Subjective Ideal- 
ism in Fichte's later life almost passed into an absolute form. 

With Schelling (1775-1854), the leading principle . 
assumed was that there is a real Nature, of which the 
ideal in Consciousness is only an opposite manifestation. 
All knowledge rests upon a harmony of the two modes 
of manifestation. " Eternal, Absolute Being is continually 
separating in the double world of Mind and Nature. It is 
ore and the same life which runs through all Nature, and 
empties itself into Man." 

With Hegel (1770-1831), the principle assumed was that 
Thought is Absolute Being, and that true logic is the pro- 
cess of the development of the Absolute. The process of 
the Absolute is the measure of all existence. It is pure 
Being, passing forever into its opposite, and forever return- 
ing back into itself, as Being, Nature, Spirit. Or, as 
Hegel himself explains his position :— "The Absolute is the 
universal Beason, which, having first buried and lost itself 
in Nature, recovers itself in Man, in the shape of self con- 
scious mind, in which the Absolute, at the close of its great 
process, comes again to itself, and comprises itself into unity 
with itself." 

Then, in the other way departing from Kant, Herbart 
(1776-1841) and his school assumed Experience alone to 



334 



MID-LIFE MEMOEABILIA PART II 



be the philosophic starting point: — "What is no given 
fact, that can not be an object of thought ; and it is im- 
possible to realize any knowledge in excess of the limits of 
experience/ 1 Herbart's development of Philosophy, how- 
ever, was what he called " the transformation of the notions 
of experience,' 9 or " the elimination of their contradictions." 
This work he named Metaphysics. Upon Metaphysics 
followed what he called Aesthetics, or man's practical 
emotional relations. Herbart set forth no real intellectual 
unity as the result of his speculations. In fact, Dr. 
Schwegler says, " He expressly isolates the particular philo- 
sophical sciences and rigorously separates, in especial, theoret- 
ical and practical philosophy. He censures the attempts 
at unity in philosophy." In his Metaphysics, however, 
Herbart came to the conclusion that there are, underlying 
all things, units of being which he called " reals." His 
philosophy, therefore, has been named ; — "an extension of 
the Monadology of Leibnitz." 

Beyond Hegel and Herbart we need not follow farther 
the direct effects of Kant's philosophic leadership in 
Germany. 

Let us look for a few moments at the course which that 
other revolt against the Skepticism of Hume took, the 
' ' Philosophy of Common Sense," led by Thomas Keid of 
Scotland (1710-1796). Soon after Hume's influence had 
become strongly felt, Reid (1764) published his " Inquiry 
into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common 
Sense." Eeid insisted upon the reality of the objects of 
perception. He claimed that " the whole of Philosophy 
consists in discovering the connection between natural 
signs and the things signified, and reducing them to general 
laws." In opposition to Locke, Berkeley and Hume, he 
said, " The first reflection I would make on their philoso- 
phical opinion is, that it is directly contrary to the universal 
sense of men who have not been interested in Philosophy. 
A second reflection is that the authors who have treated of 
ideas have generally taken their existence for granted as a 
thing that could not be called in question. A third reflec- 
tion is that philosophers, notwithstanding their unanimity 
as to the existence of ideas, hardly agree in any one thing 



1887 PHILOSOPHY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 335 



concerning them. A fourth reflection is that ideas do not 
make any of the operations of the mind to be better under- 
stood, although it was probably with that view they have 
been first invented. " Beid's method was purely that of 
Induction, based upon the trustworthiness of phenomena 
taken as signs of realities. In Great Britain his influence 
became very strong and was widely extended. 

Following Beid, the thinker of special importance as 
Eeid's disciple was Dugald Stewart (1753-1828). Stewart 
did much to make the Common Sense Philosophy as the 
opponent of Sensationalism and Skepticism effective among 
the British leaders in statecraft and literature. Scotch 
philosophy had also considerable influence in France in the 
writings of Eoyer-Collard (1763-1845), and Jouffroy (1796- 
3 842), in the early part of the Nineteenth Century, doing 
much to counteract the prevailing Materialism there. 

But Philosophy in the Present Age is not fully described 
in the development of either "Kantianism," or the "Common 
Sense" of the Scotch school. To Kant, chiefly, is due the 
fact, spoken of before, that the Nineteenth Century is best 
characterized as the era of Philosophic Criticism. In 
recent years, moreover, there has been a general revival in 
Philosophy of its manifold historic forms. Now, as never 
before, the leading philosophic systems of the past have 
been brought under review ; and now, as never before, the 
leadership of many masters has received acknowledg- 
ment in larger or smaller circles of followers. 

In Germany, for example, since Hegel and Herbart, the 
names of the different philosophic schools have become 
many ; and, of their prominent representatives, there is a 
multitude. Both Empiricism and Idealism separately, 
and in union more or less close, have been ably cham- 
pioned. Aristotle, Plato, Locke, Descartes, Spinoza, 
Leibnitz, Kant, and the masters of the early years of the 
present century have all been restudied, reinterpreted and 
illustrated to meet to-day's needs. 

In one group have stood, closely related to Hegel, J. H. 
Fichte, Weisse, Ulrici and Trendelenburg ; as a middle 
group, with Hegel, may be named Eosenkrans and 
Vischer ; and there is yet another Hegelian group of such 



336 



MID-LIFE MEMOKABILIA PART II 



men as Ruge, Feuerbach and Strands. Following Herbart, 
have been such expositors as Drobisch, Zimmermann, 
Zeller, Lazarus and Steinthal. Materialism has had 
strong and effective defense in Biichner, Moleschott and 
Vogt. Schleiermacher, although theologian rather than 
philosopher, did much to bring Spinoza's thought into 
new respect. Pessimism has had brilliant commentators 
in Schopenhauer and von Hartmann. And of late years, 
a commanding thinker has done much in the light of 
present knowledge towards reconstructing Philosophy on. 
the basis Leibnitz laid, — Hermann Lotze. These names 
are recalled not as being exhaustive of the list of prominent 
workers in behalf of philosophic progress, but merely as 
suggesting the manifold product in Germany at the present 
time of the philosophic impulse. 

In France, the philosophic situation has hardly any 
more apparent unity than it shows in Germany. Victor 
Cousin (1792-1867), who was affected by both Kant and 
Eeid for a time, was a popular thinker. As an opponent 
of Empiricism he was widely studied and followed. " Not 
only is Empiricism unable to explain universal and 
necessary principles/' Cousin claimed, " but without these 
principles Empiricism cannot even account for the know- 
ledge of the sensible world." Materialism, however, has 
continued to have a large hold upon French thought, 
Cousin's Eclecticism notwithstanding. 

Several other philosophical movements in France might 
be recalled here, but it is sufficient for our purpose to 
bring to mind only the great re-enforcement which 
appeared for Empiricism towards the middle of the century 
in the " Cours de Philosophic Positive " of Auguste 
Comte (1798-1857). The Positive Philosophy is notice- 
ble because its leading principle is neither Idealism, 
Materialism, nor Skepticism, but a positive Phenomenalism. 
Comte repudiated — at least he tried to repudiate — all 
metaphysics. In Eeligion he was avowedly neither theistic 
nor atheistic. He professed to know from his study of 
human history, however, that " the fundamental law " to 
which " human intelligence is necessarily subject " is this : 
"Each of our leading conceptions,— each branch of 



1SS7 PHILOSOPHY IX THE NINETEENTH CEXTURY 337 



our knowledge passes necessarily through three different 
theoretical conditions, — the theological or fictitious, the 
metaphysical or abstract, and the scientific or positive. " 
" Nothing but phenomena can be known. Consequently 
all knowledge is relative. The only province of true 
Philosophy is the study and classification of phenomenal 
laws, that is, the sequences and resemblances of phenom- 
ena." Positivism had had a marked influence not only 
in France, but elsewhere. 

In Great Britain the present century (the Nineteenth) 
has shown a philosophical activity as energetic and as 
complex as even that of Germany ; chiefly, however, 
complementary to, or in contrast with, the German move- 
ments. Sir William Hamilton (1791-1856), strongly 
affected by Kant, extended and deepened the Scotch 
Philosophy, and stimulated a study of the profounder 
metaphysical problems. To Coleridge and Carlyle, British 
thought owes the beginning of most of the modification it 
received from the work of Kant and his near followers. 
In later years, Hegel's speculations have become a forceful 
element in the higher circles of philosophising under the 
shaping made by Professors Green and Bradley, the 
Cairds and Dr. Stirling. In close connection, it will 
be well to remember the two great preachers, — phil- 
osophers as well, — Frederic Denison Maurice and James 
Martineau, whose clear vision and profound reasoning 
have done much to strengthen Idealism as a necessary 
part of any justified form of Philosophy. 

It is not to be forgotten, however, that the dominant 
interest in Great Britain, during the present century, has 
been continued in such methods and results as those which 
gave character to it under the leading of Locke, Hobbes, 
Hartley and the other Empiricists of the past. Philosophy 
in England is still, in the main, Empirical and Sensational. 
Psychology, as associational and physiological psychology ; 
utilitarian ethics ; and inductive rather than deductive 
logic, mark most of the aggressive and popular of English 
philosophic speculations of the century. We need but 
recall the names of Jeremy Bentham, James Mill, John 
Stuart Mill and Alexander Bain. 



338 



MID-LIFE MEMOEABILIA PABT II 



But farther on, yet in the same range of speculative 
activity with that just noticed, English thought has been 
radically affected directly and indirectly by the " Positive 
Philosophy " formulated by Comte. About forty years ago 
George Henry Lewes (1817-1873), as an avowed disciple 
of Comte, did much to popularise Positivism among his 
countrymen. Twenty seven years ago, Herbert Spencer 
began the publication of his great system of " Synthetic 
Philosophy " not yet completed ; a work of universal 
Phenomenalism in Philosophy, and of Agnosticism in 
Eeligion ; — an indirect outcome of Positivism, widely 
separated though Spencer is, in many of his most impor- 
tant positions, from Comte. At the present time, probably 
the most popular form of philosophizing in Great Britain 
is that associated with, or following, Spencer's attempt to 
formulate and illustrate a <c Law of Evolution," demonstra- 
ble as true of all Nature and of Mankind as well,- — in phys- 
ical and psychical relations too. 

In Italy and in Spain, in the Nineteenth Century, there 
has been a rapidly growing interest and activity in Phil- 
osophy ; but nothing has resulted in either country of 
sufficient moment to require attention in this sketch. The 
philosophic situation in both countries is complex, as 
elsewhere, and is much affected by Politics and Institutional 
Eeligion. 

In the American United States also, there has been but 
little effected in Philosophy worthy of special notice, in 
connection with our theme. The American people almost 
necessarily have been, in largest measure, students and 
interpreters of Philosophy as developed among other and 
older peoples. Before the political independence of the 
Colonies from Great Britain was secured, the Americans 
were philosophically dependent upon Europe : chiefly 
upon Great Britain ; in some degree upon France. 
Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), a great thinker in New 
England in the middle of the Eighteenth Century, had 
reasoned with much subtlety and force over problems in 
Ethics and Theology. 

Many of the political leaders of the Colonies had been 



1887 PHILOSOPHY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 339 



deeply affected by French philosophic Liberalism in social 
theories. 

No marked change in the philosophical activity of the 
people of the United State occurred during the first third 
of the present century. In the colleges and other educa- 
tional institutions the text books in Philosophy, generally 
in use, were an abridgement of Locke's " Essay," and the 
works of the leaders of the Scotch school, Eeid, Stewart 
and Browne. In the Fourth Decade, however, other phil- 
osophical tendencies began to be seen. The writings of 
Coleridge and of Cousin were made known ; and they found 
enthusiatic students. About that time German Idealism 
w T as introduced into popular literature and into the higher 
centers of education. A widespread enthusiasm for spec- 
ulative studies was generated among the people ; and it 
wrought itself out in many social experiments and changes. 

The past fifty years have marked the American people 
as eager to know and to understand whatever movements 
are making in Philosophy. Consequently, all creative 
masters, or competent expositors of the known philosophic 
systems excogitated in any part of the world, have been 
made known and, more or less, followed. Consequently, 
too, there are many Americans to-day who are standing 
in high honor among those who have helped recent 
Philosophy onward. 



The remainder of this sketch has disappeared from my 
papers. I shall not attempt to complete it, since, at best, it 
is a production of more than thirty years ago, and, if com- 
pleted, would still be a fragment in relation to contem- 
porary thought. 

But were I to continue the review we should, in the 
main, still follow the development of Philosophy, as an 
attempt to realize its constant Ideal, in one or another phase 
of .the tw T o divergent movements of speculation which had 
their modern initiation in Bacon and Descartes. 



340 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PART II 



Various attempts, naturally, have been made all along 
in the Modern Era, and are to-day being, made, to do away 
with this differentiation in speculation, since it is the radical 
motive of all true philosophizing that ultimately the 
Principle for all thinking is One, and that there is Unity 
through all that which is thought of. 

I do not presume to be competent to give decisive judg- 
ment as to how this Philosophic divergence shall be avoided, 
or the contradictions conciliated. Bat, as I have studied the 
problem, I have been led to think that the only way open to 
this much needed and devoutly wished for consummation 
is in a frank recognition and acknowledgment of the real 
icortli of the antithesis existing between the two historical 
tendencies and consequents of philosophic speculation, and, 
then, their subsumption, with all their respective rights re- 
cognized and preserved, under One Absolute Principle, 
necessarily superior to, but inclusive of, both. 

The four lectures which follow this historical sketch are 
attempts, — very partial, rudimentary and inadequate, I 
know, in both method and matter — yet sincere attempts 
to deal with their themes in accordance with the judgment 
just given. 

e. A Feic More Words about Krause. — These lectures, 
as I have already said, were prepared in large measure 
under the influence of the thinking of Karl Christian 
Friederich Krause. But, this notwithstanding, I again ex- 
press the wish that the real meanings and value of Krause's 
thought shall not be estimated by the manner of its 
influence upon what I have written. These lectures, 
however much they owe to Krause, are not to be under- 
stood as really representative, or rather as adequate, 
expositions of his teaching. 



1881 BE CENT APPBECIATION OF KRAUSE 341 



In order, however, that Krause as an important factor 
in the movement of human thought towards the consum- 
mate expression of the Philosophic Ideal may be more 
clearly and justly known, I will repeat the judgment of 
two competent students of his works. 

Erdmann, in his great " History of Philosophy, " after 
giving a generous summary of Krause's analytic-synthetic 
process of thought, — placing it with but one exception at 
the front in modern philosophic speculation, — makes 
the following comment. Although in their estimates of 
the interrelations of " Nature " and " Spirit " Hegel should 
be preferred to Krause, this opinion ought not prevent us 
from recognizing Krause, as having, like Hegel, in the most 
exact manner thought out, organically, that priiis which 
both " Nature " and " Spirit " have, and also as having 
restored to Philosophy the Ontology that had been taken 
away from it by Kant. 

Still more strongly does Professor Tiberghien, of the 
University of Brussels, affirm this radical opinion in an 
estimate he makes, in his " Introduction to Philosophy," 
of Krause's present and future significance in Philosophy, 

" There is a system of teaching," he says, " in which all 
the formal conditions, materials and instrumentalities of 
science are to-day fully realized : — it is the doctrine of 
Krause (1781-1832). 

" It is our judgment, after a twenty-five years study of 
all the systems of Philosophy, ancient and modern, that 
Krause's teaching is not only a work of progress but an 
innovation. It is the most decisive reform that has been 
accomplished in the world of ideas since the Eenaissance ; 
and we salute it as the dawning of the ideal system of the 
future. 



342 MID-LIFE MEMOKABILIA PART II 

" No one better than Krause has determined the being of 
God, the nature of the Universe, and of Man ; no one has 
better conceived the development of the Social Organism 
upon the basis of equality, of liberty, and of association, in 
respect to the great institutions which have continuously 
nourished the social life,— religion, the family and property ; 
no one has better reduced to unity, or better demonstrated, 
by means of the combined resources of direct cognition and 
deduction, the chief truths which concern either the physi- 
cal and moral order of the world, or the progressive move- 
ment of civilization over our globe. Metaphysics, logic 
and mathematics ; psychology, art and language ; morality, 
right, religion and the philosophy of history, have all been 
submitted to criticism in Krause's system ; they have all 
been passed tnrough the sieve of both analysis and syn- 
thesis ; and, after examination, they have all faithfully borne 
witness to the Divine character of Organization, for the 
reason that all have their being in God, and are bound 
together in and with God, in the harmony of the universal 
Life. 

" If Germany is the cradle of the thought of Krause, it 
is because the German spirit, after the labors of Leibnitz, 
Kant and their successors, was better prepared than others 
for vast conceptions. 

" But the sphere of the influence of Krause's thought ex- 
tends to-day into Europe and America. It does not bear 
the imprint of the genius of a race but of the genius of 
Humanity ; it addresses itself to the common reason, and 
gives satisfaction to the aptitudes of all peoples. In these 
critical days, when Society is running the risk of dissolu- 
tion ; when the principles of morality ; the existence of 
God ; the sanctity of marriage, reverence for right and truth, 



18S7 FUNDAMENTAL DATA FOE PSYCHOLOGY 343 



are constantly subjected to question, it will, ere long, be 
recognized that Krause's teaching is a doctrine of safety, by 
which, alone, troubled convictions can be confirmed, the 
indifferent inspired with trust, and which can guide men 
of good-will in the way of the Ideal." 



thied lectuee 

Fundamental Data foe Psychology 

It has been said, " The man who seeks to enter the 
temple of Philosophy by any other approach than the 
vestibule of Psychology can never penetrate into its inner 
sanctuary ; for Psychology alone leads to and evolves 
philosophic truth, even though itself is subordinate to 
Philosophy.' ' 

I accept this maxim for our guidance. In turning, 
therefore, to the study for which the first two lectures of 
this course have been in general preparatory we approach 
the science of Psychology. 

But why should philosophic study com men ce with this 
science ? 

For the reason, first, that whatever thinking ice may do 
mil always be our thinking ;— -it will be your thought or 
my thought. Every perception and judgment refers to 
some mind that perceives and reasons. Thought and 
knowledge always involve a subject, — a person thinking 
and knowing. We may, for rhetorical or poetic purposes, 
personify Thought and Knowledge, but in reality there 
exist nothing of the kind. Thought is a quality, and it 
belongs to some being. Thought dees not think, knowledge 
does not know ; but I think, and you think, and you may 
know, and I may know. 

The Self, therefore, is a factor in all its thoughts, 
whether they are the result of the simplest observation, of 
scientific generalization, or of philosophic speculation. 
Only through the study of the thinking being, consequent- 
ly, can the various elements which constitute Thought be 



344 



MID-LIFE MEMOEABILIA 



PART II 



discovered ; be assigned their proper places ; and be justly 
valued. 

But, secondly, if we propose through the study of 
Philosophy to reach truth, — and why should we philoso- 
phize at all without this aim ? — we should, at the outset, try 
to lay hold of some certainty. 

Now, it will become clear that only in Psychology can 
the first, indisputable certainty be found, and, thereby, the 
only incontrovertible starting point for the development of 
knowledge in a philosophic, or in any other, form. 

Suppose we were to commence our task by trying to 
answer the question with which all scientific search after 
knowledge begins; the question, 1 ' What do we cer- 
tainly know?" Each person might reply, — " I know 
that there is a World "I know there is God " I know 
that I am." But we should find, as all have found who 
have made an investigation into the content of knowledge, 
that the only one of these assertions which, at the begin- 
ning of critical inquiry, may not in some way be subjected 
to doubt is the last one. The certainty of my own being 
is the first positive, scientific certainty I possess. 

Psychology, then, the study of the Self, is, by the very 
nature of knowledge, imposed upon those who would 
answer critically the question, " What do we know? " 

But let us not infer from what I am saying that, be- 
cause critical thinking must start with psychologic study, 
it follows that knowledge is thereby confined to Self-know- 
ledge. Far from, it, as we shall see later. From the 
reasons which have been given, however, it does follow 
that only through Psychology, properly carried forward, 
can we bring order and arrangement into the confusion 
which is presented within ourselves to the questioning 
mind, and, thereby, at last become intelligent enough to 
say, " This is of me, and that comes from some other ; " 
" This I am, and that I am not." 

The psychologic process, rightly developed, does not end 
by shutting man up within himself. On the contrary. 
However much the study may seem to do this on the 
lower levels of inquiry, it at last leads to the discovery of 
principles which, though present in the mind, are shown 



1887 THE ULTIMATE PSYCHOLOGIC DATUM 345 

by their very content to be not the product of the mind, 
but to be produced for the mind. In fact, through Psy- 
chology lies the path to the certainty that man is him- 
self included in Being which infinitely transcends him. 
This certainty becomes the real justification for Philosophy; 
and it finally leads to the conviction that the Philosophic 
Ideal exists not only as Thought, but also as sign of Reality, 
— that is to say, of Real Being. 

And, in doing this, the service rendered by Psychology 
goes yet farther. In disclosing Absolute Reality, it thereby 
gives to man ample speculative reason for his belief in the 
actual existence of the World tvhich appears to him through 
the senses ; and also it establishes for him confidence in his 
growing sciences as true interpretations of the World. 

At the point where we now are, of course the claim that 
Psychology does this service to Philosophy and Science is 
but a claim. Let it for the present remain as only that. 
In our last lecture I shall return to this theme and try to 
show that the claim is well grounded. 

For these reasons, evidently, philosophic study should 
commence with Psychology. But how should Psychology 
itself be begun and carried forward '? 

It is not my intention now to attempt to develop this 
science. At present, my purpose goes no farther than to 
read a sort of introductory chapter to Psychology. In 
view of what is required for a proper development of the 
science itself ; and with reference to much that is charac- 
teristic of recent Psychology, and often misunderstood by 
students of the science, I wish merely to call attention to 
some fundamental data which must be recognized and 
used before any Psychology worthy the name can be 
begun. 

i. 

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 
THE ULTIMATE PSYCHOLOGIC DATUM. 

I shall speak first of the field for psychologic research 
and of the means which should be used to advance the 
development of the science. 



346 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PART II 



The only possible domain for psychologic research, I am 
confident, and, ultimately, the only real source of Self 
interpretation is Self-Consciousness. Do not, however, under- 
stand me as meaning, when I say this, that the psycho- 
logist may not bring into the service of Self-Consciousness 
other agencies and other sources. I have used the word 
" ultimately " to qualify the claim. How that word 
qualifies it, I shall show further on. At the outset, how- 
ever, I would emphasize the assertion just made. 

I am confident that Self-Consciousness is the essential 
psychologic datum ; that it is necessary for all valid Psy- 
chology, and that, ultimately, it is both instrument and 
source of the science. " How is it that ?" it may be asked. 
I offer here only a preliminary answer to the question. 

Self-Consciousness may be described as that quality of a 
conscious being by which he is present to himself, as himself. 
If this is true, evidently the question is in large measure 
answered. Let us suppose then that, as Self-conscious, one 
is as if he were witness of a life and, at the same time, were 
certain that the life is his own. Or, I may say, that 
thinking, one is conscious of the thought, and at the same 
time knows the thought to be his own ; that feeling, or 
willing, — expressing himself in myriad ways, — all these 
facts are not only as if they were perceived by him, but were 
perceived by him as his own. 

Well, what is here put as supposition, I am confident 
is a close approximation to the truth. To use a poor 
illustration ; — as Self-conscious, a man is as if he were both 
vision and mirror in one. 

Granting for the moment that our supposition is verified, 
we see that Psychology must in the end find in this 
essential presence of self to self, both its instrument and 
its source. 

Now let us try to perceive more clearly the position I 
have taken. I do not mean, in assuming this position, 
that in psychologic study the student is to try to do his 
work only by means of direct introspection. I am not 
proposing that he shall be like a Buddha, with eyes closed 
and thought engrossed by immediate self- reflection. Let 



1887 THE ULTIMATE PSYCHOLOGIC DATUM 347 



one attempt to seek self-knowledge in this manner and 
he will soon find his efforts baffled. 

The very act of trying to observe directly a psychical 
fact tends to change its character. In anatomy, botany, 
chemistry, geology, and like sciences, the objects of in- 
vestigation exist outside the observing mind ; and they 
remain unchanged while they are being studied. They 
can be looked at, returned to, examined in their various 
"relations, comparatively independent of time. They are 
passive and are practically fixed. But consciousness is 
subjected to unceasing change. It passes through a series 
of states. It has a flow of moments, perpetually coming 
and disappearing. There is nothing more flitting and 
elusive than the phenomena of consciousness. If possible, 
then, some way should be found by w 7 hich to avoid this 
persistent difficulty. If possible, Psychology should be 
studied under the same advantages which make other 
sciences comparatively easy to develop. 

Can Psychology be so studied ? Not altogether, I must 
admit. Psychology, from the very nature of its subject 
matter, is different from the purely objective sciences ; and, 
v/hatever may be done for it, it will remain separate from 
them. But it can be made, practically to some extent, 
objective. Indeed, a large part of the really acceptable 
Psychology of the present day is apparently wholly an 
objective study. In the end, however, the study can 
not do away with the necessity of referring to Self-Con- 
sciousness in order to get endorsement for the validity of its 
products. All its objective character is seeming ; and this is 
secured for Self-Consciousness simply by the use of some 
indirect methods through which the difficulties associated 
with direct introspection may in a measure be avoided. 

But how does, or how can Psychology retain its subject- 
ive character and yet secure the advantages which belong 
to the objective studies, — the sciences of external things ? 

The agency approximating this end is, first, Memory. 
I can, for instance, remember and record, with more or 
less certainty, what was directly present in consciousness a 
moment ago. By the Memory, psychical facts can be held 



348 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PAET II 



fixed for a longer or shorter time; and, thereby, they can be 
examined somewhat as one studies a leaf or a stone. 

However, we may not forget that Memory, effective 
though it may be, could be of no service whatever 
in psychologic study had not the student so perceiv- 
ed or known the thought or act when it first ap- 
peared in consciousness, that, in remembering it, he 
recognizes it as his own. Psychologic study, even when 
made apparently objective by Memory, derives, you 
see, its actual value from being the re-cognition of that 
which was previously cognition within direct Self-Conscious- 
ness. Almost at the time I had written this passage,, 
a work on " Eealistic Philosophy " by Dr. James McCosh, 
just then published, came into my hands. Glancing 
through it, I came across this appropriate passage. Speak- 
ing of the modern English psychologists, he said : — " They 
make memory a mere reproduction of the past ; but this is 
not all that is involved in memory. In remembrance 
there is not only the image of the object, but a recognition 
of it as having been before the. mind in time past." 

Psychology, however, in other ways than through the 
use of the Memory has been made more and more 
really objective. Much of modern Psychology finds its 
field of research in manifestations of the psychical life of 
human beings other than the observer. Very valuable 
results have followed from this method of study. Careful 
observation of the lives of those around us ; — of other men's 
speech,- of their play of emotion, and of all their voluntary ac- 
tions ; of their ways of receiving pleasure and enduring pain ; 
of their ambitions and their conduct under failure ; in short, 
of the total product of their inner life made manifest, is an 
excellent means of disclosing the nature and the life within. 

But, while this is true, let it be remembered that no psy- 
chologist could reasonably consider the results of this kind 
of study as of real worth, except as he should proceed with 
the conviction that the beings he studies are like himself, and 
that their deeds are recognized as like his own. In a high 
sense of the common saying, " He judges others by him- 
self." If he builds up psychologic science upon observation 
of the manifestations of other Selves, he can have no con- 



1SS7 



THE ULTIMATE PSYCHOLOGIC DATUM 349 



fidence in his work, except as he regards such manifestations 
as proceeding from a source kindred with his own being. 
" We may gather what has passed through the minds of 
other people from their words and deeds, but we under- 
stand what these are because of our own conscious 
experience." Unless the results of Psychology, thus made 
objective, are confirmed for the student in his own con- 
sciousness they can have no personal value for him. Thus 
confirmed, however, a great deal of material for Psychology 
may be brought to light and wrought into the science. 

In like manner all the. mental products of mankind can 
be made valuable. Professor John Dewey says, "Mind 
has not remained a passive spectator of the universe, but 
has produced and is producing certain results. These results 
are objective ; and can be studied as all objective historical 
facts may be ; and are permanent. Such objective mani- 
festations of mind are, in the realm of intelligence, phenom- 
ena like language and science; in that of will, social and 
political institutions ; in that of feeling, art ; in that of the 
whole self, religion, Philology, the logic of science, 
history, sociology, etc., study these various departments as 
objective, and endeavor to trace the relations which connect 
their phenomena. But none of these sciences take into 
account the fact that science, history, art, etc., are all 
of them products of the mind, or self, working itself out 
according to its own laws, and that, therefore, in studying 
them we are only studying the fundamental nature of the 
conscious self." We must therefore continue to bear it in 
mind, that the results of a study of mental products, 
generally, are worthless for the service of the science of 
Self, except as they are at last recognized and confirmed by 
direct introspection. 

Again, further contributions to Psychology are sought 
by investigation into immature psychical life; as in infants, 
and in abnormal manifestations, as among the idiotic, the 
insane, and otherwise practically deformed beings. But 
whatever the gains made in this direction, they are mainly 
those of suggestion. They depend, for whatever worth 
they may have, upon the assumption that the minds which 
show them are in essence akin to our own. 



350 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PART II 



A noticeable effort to make Psychology wholly objective 
is widely extended at the present day under such names 
as " Physiological Psychology," " Cerebral Psychology," 
and "Psycho-Physics." This effort is useful and commend- 
able as far as it actually goes ; but, at most, it cannot go 
very far. It discloses an intimate connection between the 
psychical and physical relations of Man ; it makes plain 
how certain states and changes of the body are the 
occasion and accompaniment of certain states and changes 
in the consciousness. But very few thinkers presume upon 
the judgment that the most developed " Psycho-Physics " 
has discoverd and explained the mysterious nexus between 
mind and body. In our last lecture I showed, by quotation, 
what such naturalists as Professor Huxley and Tyndall 
think of the attempt to cross, by experiment and observa- 
tion, from matter to mind. I need but add here what the 
accomplished physiologist, Da Bois Beyrnond says on the 
same subject. He declares that, " if w r e possess an 
absolutely perfect knowledge of the body, including the 
brain and all changes in it, the psychical state known as 
Sensation would be as incomprehensible as now." 

We may conclude, then, that the approved results of 
Physiological Psychology, as we know them through the 
most advanced forms of the science, for example, those 
reached in Germany by Fechner and Wundt, go no farther 
than the observation and classification of certain physical 
accompaniments of consciousness, such as the localization 
of mental functions in the brain ; " the composition and 
relation of sensations ; the nature of attention ; the time 
occupied by various mental processes." The mere know- 
ledge of all the functions of brain and nerves does not 
help the science except so far as it occasions a more 
penerating psychological analysis ; and shows the close 
correlation of physical with psychological states and acts. 

Therefore I urgently repeat the assertion made a few 
moments ago. Hoicever much may be the value, and it 
is very great, of the attempt to develop Psychology as one 
of the objective sciences, and thus to free the study from the 
difficulties which are associated with introspection, the 
gains evidently go for nothing except as they are re- 



18S7 THE ULTIMATE PSYCHOLOGIC DATUM 351 



cognized, endorsed, and appropriated by the Self-Conscious- 
ness of each Self for itself. The ultimate instrument and 
domain for psychologic science, I repeat, is Self-Con- 
sciousness. All apparently objective psychology is justified 
only as it appeals ultimately to this essential presence of 
Self to self, for verification. 

What, for example, would language mean to one who 
did not have the power of reproducing and understanding 
the language ? What would observation of the acts of 
others convey to us, if we ourselves did not do like deeds, 
and also did not know them to be ours ? The apparently 
objective methods in Psychology are only so many devices 
for co-operating with, and in fact for extending, Self- 
Consciousness. 

It is with the true and essential Self that Psychology 
always finally deals. However, then, we may approach 
the science, our work refers us at last to ourselves, and, in 
the final appeal, to each individual Self. 

This fact brings us to another very important considera- 
tion. Psychology is a science appertaining, in the end, to 
each separate Self. This being true, we find that when 
we regard it as a general science also, — that is, as the 
science of the Human Self without reference to you or me, 
or to any other one individual,— serious difficulties are placed 
in our way. They are not to be ignored. But how are 
they to be met ? 

First, since each Self is immediately conscious of only 
himself, the science of Psychology, to have general validity, 
must be developed under the assumption that all human 
beings are in essence alike. Psychological knowledge 
cannot, in the last resort, be demonstrated. As far as it is 
demonstrable at all, demonstration must always be carried 
on under an ultimate assumption. If, for example, I find 
myself led to declare that the Self is a thinking being, it is 
because I am conscious of myself as thinking ; I recognize 
thought as one of my own qualities. My judgment can 
have no value whatever for those who do not recognize 
themselves, also, as thinking beings. 

• From this fact follows a second peculiar difficulty, when 
we regard psychologic science as having general worth. 



352 



MID-LIFE MEMOEABILIA 



PAET II 



Not only is psychologic knowledge ultimately confined 
to each individual consciousness, but it is limited, to 
that consciousness according to its quantity ami hind 
of development. 

Self-Consciousness is apparently a state, or a stage, 
gained by man in his development. As far as we 
can remember, or as far as we observe other human 
beings, there is a time when Self is not Self-Conscious. 
Self-Consciousness seems to come in the process of our 
growth, and to be influenced largely by our surroundings. 
It varies with individuals. It may be clear or dull, 
profound or superficial. All the factors affecting one's 
personality : as, for example, one's birth in the midst of 
poverty or riches ; within an environment of culture or of 
ignorance ; in one nation or another ; these and other in- 
fluences combine to shape the personal development of 
which Self-Consciousness apparently forms part. This 
difficulty is not to be ignored. It can be lessened only by 
persistent effort on the part of each conscious Self to gain 
real self-knowledge, through both direct and indirect ob- 
servation, relying all the while upon the fundamental 
assumption that all selves are essentially alike, and that, 
being alike, there will be a constantly increasing agreement 
among those who sincerely seek true Self-knowledge. 

Another difficulty in our way, which, however, is in- 
cluded in the one we have just been considering, arises out 
of our means of communication with one another, — 
Language. Language is but a collection, or a system, of 
symbols formed by mankind to make themselves intelligible 
to one another ; to communicate to others their thoughts, 
feelings and purposes. Words are at best but imperfect 
symbols, too. They do not present ; they always re- 
present. One perceives ; and when he has perceived, he 
names. Words do not create thoughts ; but words are 
created for thoughts. For this reason words are always 
for us what we understand by them. We may, therefore, 
use the same words, and be talking at cross purposes with 
one another. Unless we associate with words the same 
thoughts, we are really mutually unintelligible. In the 
study of Psychology, consequently, we should be as careful 



1887 THE ULTIMATE PSYCHOLOGIC DATUM 353 

as possible in our speech, and should, above all, seek to 
discover that of which the words are really the signs. 

But, recognizing the difficulties which are in the way of 
psychologic knowledge, in itself considered ; and also the 
obstacles confronting it when we ascribe to it general 
validity, we shall now resume consideration of what I have 
called the ultimate datum for the science. 

We shall consider, first, more in particular, what Self- 
Consciousness is. Then, we shall look at some of its evident 
implications. As said before, Self-Consciousness is an in- 
telligent presence of self to self. The declaration "I" 
means nothing if not both Self cognition and re-cognition. 
It refers to Self as known to be both subject and object. 
It identifies both ; that is to say, in this act of knowledge 
it knows both subject and object to be the same. This is a 
truth of intuition. No one can prove it ; and no conscious 
being demands proof for it. It is its own witness ; it 
needs no other. Were other witness demanded for it, 
none could be found. 

What we have already said in reference to Memory, 
however, may furnish further suggestion, to those capable 
of receiving it, towards an adequate apprehension of the 
truth we have before us. No one, for example, could say of 
a thought, or of an act as he remembers it, "It was mine," 
or " I did it," had he not been so present to himself when 
the thought or act was initiated, that now, as he remem- 
bers, he is compelled to identify with himself, him whose 
thought or act he has recalled . 

Further, it is only because we have a proper Self-Con- 
sciousness that the work of those psychologists who think 
they have confined the science to a study of " states of 
consciousness/' and "'a succession of psychical pheno- 
mena," has any real meaning, or any real psychologic 
value. In other words, no knowledge of psychical phe- 
nomena, or states, could have any scientific worth, except 
as the psychologist were able to refer them loithout question 
to himself as his own. 

I have said that Self-Consciousness is a state, or stage, of 
our development. I do not mean, however, that it is a 
creation, or is a something which is brought into being, 



354 



MID-LIFE MEMOEABILIA PAKT II 



in our growth. We cannot think of any mode of inter- 
action with our surroundings which would create Con- 
sciousness, any more than we can think of the creation of 
what we call Sensation. We can see that our environ- 
ment has much to do with educing, or evoking, 
Sensation, but nothing more than that. Our bodies are 
potentially sensitive, and Sensation becomes actual in our 
growth, — in our interaction with the external world. 
Likewise Consciousness is a natural quality of our psychical 
life, and Self-Consciousness is a potential self-relation in us 
which becomes actual at some time, sooner or later, in our 
development. Although Self-Consciousness may appear 
far along in our psychical growth, we are sure, from its 
quality, that it has not been acquired like our consciousness 
of what is not-self. It is but a matured form of an ori- 
ginal, natural reflex which is essential in our own being. 

II. 

SOME IMPLICATIONS OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 

We are ready now to take the next step in our discus- 
sion. With Self- Consciousness clearly recognized, we shall 
discover, as we reflect further, some implications because of 
it, which are exceedingly important in connection with our 
theme. 

Prominent among these implications is, first, this : — 
Self-Consciousness necessarily refers to a Self that is 
conscious. Ifc has no independent existence ; it is a 
quality not a substance ; it necessitates the assumption of 
the existence of a being to whom it belongs. The word, or 
the declaration, " I " stands for a Self-conscious being. 

A second implication is that this being is originally 
spontaneous, that is, self-assertive. Were this not the fact, 
no consciousness of difference between Self and its sur- 
roundings could ever have arisen. In one relation, evidently, 
Self is passive. It receives the impressions which are 
made upon it from its environment. But it is by an original 
Spontaneity that each Self asserts itself ; thereby, it recog- 
nizes in consciousness its separation from that which is not 



t 



1887 IMPLICATIONS OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 355 

itself. This is an evident implication in our notion of this 
essential quality appertaining to the Self. 

But do facts confirm the implication '? We cannot re- 
member the process we went through in our early psychical 
development, We can infer. to what happened then, only 
from our present instinctive impulses and manner of act- 
ing. Yet a careful study of other developing human beings 
does much to suggest confirmation for the claim made. 

It cannot be said that infants, for example, self- 
consciously perform mental acts ; but, evidently, they go 
through mental processes which are essentially the same 
as those which occupy the matured mind. The child re- 
ceives "presentations " of what affect him. Then he acts 
upon these presentations by what w T e call " perception." 
Further, perceiving, he distinguishes "like and unlike;" he 
"remembers and classifies ;" and he reasons from "effect to 
cause;" and from "quality to being" to which quality 
belongs. Ideas which we embody in the words " being," 
"quality/ 5 "likeness," " difference," "relation," " effect," 
"cause," " co- existence," " succession," and many more, 
he evidently attributes to the "presentations" made to 
him. These ideas are the spontaneous expression 
of his psychical nature. Of course, I do not mean that 
any child uses the ideas consciously ; but I do mean that 
he thinks ; and that he thinks by the very means to which 
psychologists have given these technical names. Whatever 
may be discovered as to human nature, or the process of 
human development, T am confident that in it place will 
always have to be given to an original, self-assertive 
Spontaneity. 

A further confirmation to the Self-assertive Spontaneity 
which is implied in Self-Consciousness is to be found in 
Language. For example, there are some words w 7 hich in 
their original meaning can not be defined, but whose 
original meanings must be assumed before, and in, all de- 
finitions we give to them. 

To illustrate : an object is presented to the mind for the 
first time. At once there arises what we may call a prim- 
ary consciousness of the object. This primary conscious- 
ness, or original perception, — if we may apply the word 



356 MID-LIFE MEMOEABILIA PABT II 

to this mental act — is in no degree definite. Neverthe- 
less, it is as real as it ever becomes. When we proceed to 
trace out "likeness and difference'' for the perception, then 
we begin the process of "definition." Names have been 
adopted to signify certain primary perceptions ; names 
which stand for indefinite meanings, and which are in 
themselves icholly antecedent to definition. 

Time will not permit us to go far into this subject ; but 
in order to indicate what I mean, let us take the word, 
" being " or " thing." Every one of us knows what either 
words stands for ; but who can define its original mean- 
ing? Let us try. 

We may say that "being" is "that which is." Bat this 
is saying only that "being" is "being." We have not de- 
fined the word. In order to do that we must ask what 
are the likenesses and differences of " being." We 
answer, " being," in itself considered, is like being. What 
is it unlike? It is unlike no being. Thing is like thing ; 
thing is unlike no thing ; that is, nothing. In this 
way, evidently, we make no progress. We do not at all 
define the words. As original terms, therefore, they stand 
for apperception, which lies before all sense of likeness and 
difference ; they stand for a primary, undefinded consci- 
ousness. They express neither similarity nor contrast ; not 
similarity, for "being " is like only "being ;" not contrast for 
to contrast them with "no being" and with "no thing" is to 
contrast them with nothing. Similarity must lie between 
existences, or nowhere. There can be no perception of 
nothing. It is the most evident w r ord jugglery to say there 
is. Real perception always involves something. The per- 
ception of what is called nothing depends simply upon the 
fact that there is " nothing " to be perceived. 

Now, in order to define such a word as " being," we 
must at the outset assume and understand the original 
indefinite consciousness we have which is back of the word ; 
and then if it is a being, we can begin to trace out, within 
and in subordination to that consciousness, the defining 
marks of the definite being of which we are conscious. 

The primary perception goes only so far as to convey 
knowledge of " being " as present. Definition proceeds by 



1887 IMPLICATIONS OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 357 



a secondary process, — to discover, definitely, what the 
being is in terms of likeness and difference. 

Now, that which the mind evidently does in its percep- 
tion of being and beings generally, it also does in con- 
sciousness of Self. By nature we are self-assertive. There- 
fore we are essentially present to Self, although our 
consciousness of Self is originally wholly undefined. The 
appearance of definite Self-Consciousness is occasioned by 
the development of our perception of the likeness and 
difference of Self among other beings. Through that 
perception each Self at length knows and recognizes that he 
is one being in the midst of many beings who are not him- 
self. By this process, in all probability, at last Self- 
Consciousness is made clear ; it becomes more or less 
definite, and it finds intelligent expression in such words 
as « I " and " Myself." 

Looking back now over the way we have come, we see 
that we have taken the following positions. 

1. The science of Psychology in the strictest sense of the 
word depends upon Self-Consciousness as both its instru- 
ment and its field of research. This remains true, however 
much, and however advantageously, we may employ 
objective methods to avoid the difficulties associated with 
direct introspection. 

2. Further, we have described Self -Consciousness as an 
intelligent presence of each Self to itself. We have seen 
that for the meaning of this presence it must be its own in- 
terpreter ; that it cannot be found by searching for it ; that 
he who would seek it has it already ; and that it cannot be 
voluntarily ignored when cnce gained. To doubt Self- 
Consciousness would be to intensify the fact of Self Con- 
sciousness ; to say " I deny that I am conscious of my- 
self," would be an absurdly contradictory proposition, a 
reductio ad absurdum. 

3. And thirdly, we have found, as implications in Self- 
Consciousness, that Self is a being, not a quality ; and that 
in our purely subjective experience, through observation of 
others, and through language, Self is manifested as 
originally spontaneous and self-assertive. 



358 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



I offer these several propositions as indicating the 
fundamental data which must be recognized and under- 
stood before any psychologic science worthy the name can 
be started and developed. 

Accepting these data as necessary pre-requisites for the 
scientific study of Self, we discover through them just 
what we may expect to accomplish by psychologic 
inquiry. They show us that a true Psychology cannot 
even be begun without there having already been an as- 
sumption of essential knowledge. The science is really an 
attempt to answer the question : " What am I? 99 And 
evidently this question is not possible until the fundamental 
data of which I have spoken are at least implicit in the 
thought of him who asks it. The inquiry assumes, you 
see, the existence of Self in the word " I." It refers to a 
primary consciousness of Self in the undefined self- 
knowledge which is expressed in the word " I." And it 
gives evidence of personal spontaneity in the impulse to 
search after definite self-knowledge back of the inquiry 
" What am I ?" 

The aim, or purpose, of Psychology does not affect the 
ultimate Self-cognition at all. The aim of the science is to 
bring into consciousness that which individualizes, deter- 
mines, defines, the already indefinitely but really known 
Self ; to discover and to set forth that which makes each one 
what he is. In other words, assuming an original, a real, 
though undetermined consciousness of Self, we seek by 
psychologic inquiry to change that undefined consciousness 
into a Self-knowledge which shall at last be perfectly 
definite. 

An illustration drawn from our experience in gain- 
ing knowledge of things in the external world may 
help to make this meaning of the word "definition" clearer. 
Let us suppose we were taking a walk some morning ; 
the landscape all around us covered by a dense mist. The 
fog might for a time attract attention ; but the probabilities 
are that before long we should think very little of it ; pos- 
sibly not notice it at all. Yet no one can doubt that we 
should remain, in some way, conscious of it ; in some degree 
be aware of its presence. The monotonous grey would enclose 



1887 IMPLICATIONS OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 359 



us in every direction, and we should know it. But, while 
walking onward, inattentive to our surroundings, should 
there appear before us a darkening in the fog, in all proba- 
bility our attention would be aroused by the change in our 
environment, and directed to it. Oar indefinite conscious- 
ness would be broken up by a perception of " difference. " 
We should at once go through the mental process which 
gives rise to the words, " this " and " that." Thereupon 
curiosity would be excited ; its natural expression would be 
the question, " What is that ? " 

What should we mean by the inquiry ? Our meaning 
would not be, " Is that something ? " Not at all. Al- 
ready we are as conscious as we could ever be that some- 
thing is there. It may be only a denser part of the fog ; 
or it may be some object in the fog. Yet, whatever it is, 
we are sure it is something. We must at least have this 
certainty before we could make any inquiry about the 
darkened mist. Its meaning is that, having gained an in- 
definite consciousness, we desire definiteness for it, or a "de- 
finition." That is, a drawing of limits, discovering marks 
of individualization, a bringing of its qualities to light. The 
word " what " has this for its aim. 

Let us suppose our walk to continue. For a time, 
probably, we gain no answer to our question. We may 
guess that the object is a house, or a tree, or some other 
thing ; but our guesses do not help us. If, however, as 
we go farther, we observe that the darkness takes on a 
clearer shape, in other words becomes more " defined," we 
answer in some measure our question. 

The shape becomes angular, or let us say, right-angled ; 
the original, undefined appearance has now become so far 
definite that we do not hesitate to say, it is not a tree. A 
tree might be trimmed into that shape, but probably it 
would not be so trimmed on a country road in Minnesota. 
All we are sure of is that in the dense mist there is an 
angular something. What we need is further definiteness 
or " definition." At last, our walk takes us far enough to 
show that the rectangular shape is that of a car standing 
on a railway. Our inquiry is in large measure then satis- 
fied. But why ? Simply because, having added one and 



360 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



another mark of definiteness to and within our original in- 
definite perception, we have gained that which we have 
wished to know. 

If, however, we had never seen a railway car before, we 
should probably continue our quest ; and, moreover, with 
whatever knowledge we might gain of cars and railroads 
we could push our inquiry, in all probability, endlessly. 
Inquiry would not be finally stopped until the infinite 
series of internal and external relations of the object to the 
Universe had been exhausted. Search would be rewarded 
with the discovery of each new mark of definiteness, but 
inquiry might ever be renewed. Knowing that a being 
is, one can endlessly seek to know what it is ; that is to 
say, one can continuously seek to " define " it. 

So then, clearly understanding that antecedent to psy- 
chologic inquiry is original, real Self -consciousness, we can 
intelligently proceed to begin and to mature, by definition 
of Self, the series of truths which compose Psychology. 

We are thus led to the entrance of the science. We 
shall not now attempt to pass through the portal and 
study what it is within. Our purpose will have been ac- 
complished if I have been so been enabled to call attention 
to the data fundamental to Psychology that you will 
acknowledge and use them in your studies. 

These data beyond question are given ; and they must be 
accepted and used if any real science of Self is to be begun 
and matured. 

I have taken our time this afternoon for a discussion of 
what are doubtless abstract and probably very abstruse 
matters ; and I have perhaps seemed to draw out the 
argument to an unnecessary length, and to burden it with 
a too frequent repetition of the main proposition I have 
advanced. But, in view of much of the Psychology 
current at the present day, our treatment of the subject 
may be justified. 

A great deal of the Psychology now claiming attention 
avowedly ignores the very conditions which I have here 
emphasized as necessary to its proper development. 
One need but glance at the systematized Psychology of 



1887 



MILL, BAIN, AND SPENCER 



361 



such popular teachers as Mill, Bain, Spencer, — indeed of 
the whole Sensational and Phenomenal school of England, 
France, and Germany, for confirmation of the assertion 
just made. " To judge from habitual language," writes 
Dr. Martineau, " the physiologist considers himself to be 
treading upon the heels of the mental philosopher, and to 
be heir presumptive, if not already rival claimant to the 
whole domain. Between the facts of life as manifested 
through the lower grades of organized existence and the 
facts of mind special to our race, he recognizes no ulti- 
mate distinction, and confidently looks for evidence of 
essential identity. In this view, therefore, the study of Hu- 
manity constitutes only the uppermost stratum of scientific 
natural history ; it deals with certain residuary phenomena 
left on hand when the lower organisms have been ex- 
hausted, and its separation is no less prominent and 
artificial than that of any one branch of zoology from any 
other. It is thus the crown and summit of the hierarchy 
of natural sciences ; emerging from physiology, as physi- 
ology from chemistry, and chemistry from physics, and 
differing only as each superior term differs from the inferior, 
in the greater complexity and more restrictive range of the 
attributes it contemplates." 

I have referred by name, among those who ignore the 
fundamental data for psychologic science, to John Stuart 
Mill, Alexander Bain, and Herbert Spencer. I have done 
this because their work is the most prominent and most 
widely read of recent productions in England distinctive of 
the Psychology I have been induced to qualify. 

I speak of Mr. Mill, because he has defined mind, as " a 
series of feelings with a background of the possibilities of 
feeling." He has admitted that, in giving this definition, 
— " We are reduced to the alternative of believing that the 
mind, or ego is something different from any series of 
feelings, or possibilities of them, or of accepting the paradox 
that something which ex hypothesi is but a series of feel- 
ings can be aware of itself as a series." Mr. Mill declined 
to accept the first one of his alternatives, and, although 
he did not commit himself to the untenable second, his 



362 MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PART II 



refusal to accept the first separates him from those who 
hold it, and subjects him to their criticism. 

Professor Bain does not hesitate to class himself with 
those who profoundly ignore the fundamental psychologic 
data. " So long," he says, " as human conduct can be 
accounted for by assigning certain sensibilities to pleasure 
and pain, an active machinery and an intelligence, we 
need not assume anything else to make the "I " or " Self." 
"When " I " walk the fields, there is nothing but a certain 
motive founded in my feelings, operating upon my active 
organs." The self-contradictions in this statement are evi- 
dent; but the intended denials are also evident. Moreover, 
we are compelled to inquire — " Whence does he gain all 
this definite knowledge, having invalidated the testimony 
of a real Self-Cons nonsness ?" 

T have associated Mr. Spencer with Messrs. Mill and 
Bain. I do this notwithstanding the claim Mr. Spencer 
makes in the " Introduction " to his work on the science, 
that, " Psychology is a totally unique science independent 
of, and antithetically opposed to, all other sciences what- 
ever; " and notwithstanding his opposition to those who, 
as he says, " following M. Comte assert that subjective 
psychology is impossible." Mr. Spencer's data for 
Psychology are the structure and functions of the 
nervous system ; conditions essential to nervous action ; 
nervous stimulation and nervous discharge ; and nervous 
phenomena as phenomena of consciousness ; while his 
Subjective Psychology never for once accepts, at its full 
value, the essential personal relation which make Self- 
Consciousness a reality. In so many words, he denies this 
fundamental datum in his definition of mind ; for he says 
that mind is " a circumscribed aggregate of activities." 
And, in his dictum referring to Self-Consciousness, he de- 
clares that a thing cannot at the same instant be both 
subject and object of thought." He thereby denies to the 
human being the function which I have claimed is 
essential in Self-Consciousness, a quality which must be true 
of ourselves if we are ever to know our thoughts and deeds 
as our own. Moreover, Mr. Spencer's treatment of 
Psychology is wholly from the physical side, — as a degree of 



1887 



MILL, BAIN, AND SPENCER 



363 



a universal physical evolution, It is carried on under the 
prejudice of his favorite doctrine of the " Unknowable," 
and by means of a study of phenomena through which no 
reality is disclosed. 

The position I have taken is very different from that of 
Mr. Spencer. I hold that Psychology is not formed 
merely by a continuation of physical science. I claim 
that, however valuable physiological research may be 
made for psychological purposes,' — and doubtless it has 
great value,— it can never blossom into real know- 
edge of mind. I believe that, in evolution, mind may 
accompany, but that it cannot flow out of, matter as 
"matter;" and I believe too that in Self-Consciousness real 
being is disclosed. 

So, evidently, it is my conviction that fundamentally 
Psychology is as truly separate from Physiology as self- 
knowledge is separate from that which is of not-self. The 
original, essential data of Psychology are not in the structure 
and functions of the nervous system, but in the veritable 
self-relation which is manifest in Self-Consciousness. Upon 
this essential self-reflex alone depends the reliability of any 
truth concerning Self, or of other objects of thought, which 
Mr. Spencer or any thinker may gain, however much, in 
theory, he may ignore it. Instead of defending the posi- 
tion I have taken, it is rather our privilege to turn upon 
those who deny it, with the claim that Physiology not only 
does not make Psychology true, but that through Psy- 
chology Physiology itself and all other knowledge become 
possible. 

I leave our theme with this summary of my argument. 

All psychologic study finds its instrument and field of 
research, ultimately, in Self-Consciousness, however much 
it may summon to its aid memory ; observation of the 
words and deeds of other human beings, such as history, 
literature, art ; morbid and abnormal physical manifesta- 
tions ; investigation into immature and low T er forms of life ; 
and observation and experimentation upon the body's 
functions, — particularly upon the relation of the nervous 
system to consciousness. In fact, — so I believe, — Psycho- 
logy has really no way of making its work valid except as 



3G4 



MID-LIFE MEMOBABILIA PART II 



it assumes and refers constantly to an original, personal 
conscious Self ; and verifies all its results at last by the recog- 
nition which Self through Consciousness allows to them. 



FOURTH LECTURE 

The Mind's Process in Thinking. 

I propose for our fourth lecture to take a chapter from 
Psychology, which we may entitle " The Mind's Process 
in Thinking." 

This topic comes into our course naturally because, were 
we to undertake a careful psychical analysis, we should 
find that Self-Consciousness contains Thought as one of its 
leading activities. Thinking is the chief agency by which 
to answer the motive psychological question, " What am 
I ? " While, then, Self-Consciousness is ultimately the 
only instrument and source of Psychology, as we learned 
in our last lecture, we find that Self-Consciousness involves 
the intellectual factor as one of its essential elements. We 
are confronted, consequently, with the paradox: — Psy- 
chology cannot be perfected except by means of right 
thinking ; but the nature and methods of right thinking 
depend upon correct psychical analysis. 

This paradox, however, becomes an evident truth in the 
following manner. Actuated by an instinctive desire for 
Self-knowledge, our search at first is directed by the logical 
processes which every mind naturally employs. Inquiry 
continues, possibly without scientific result, until the 
phenomena of thinking are recognized. Instinctively, 
then, we begin to think about our thinking. Gradually we 
discover, more or less fully, " the laws of thought." This 
knowledge then reacts upon psychical research. At 
length, by a more and more complete interaction of the 
results of the two inquiries, Psychology becomes logical, 
and matured Logic, in its turn, guides Psychology towards 
full maturity. 

I shall to-day assume that we have in large measure 
rightly interpreted the paradox of the relation between 
Psychology and Logic ; that we have recognised the two 



1887 



THE MIND'S PROCESS IN THINKING 



365 



sciences in their proper places, and with their proper 
functions ; that, therefore, we need to make only a more 
careful investigation of the process by which we think. I 
assume, then, that we have already begun our study of 
Philosophy by a methodic il and logical Psychology ; that 
we have accepted the fact of a primary indefinite Self- 
Consciousness and have begun to make it definite ; that 
is, that we have set out to discover what the Self is ; — in 
itself, in its parts, and in its various relations. We have 
seen, let us suppose, what are the ultimate deductions 
which Self makes of itself as " a being ;" that we have 
recognized also the psychical and physical parts which 
constitute us as human beings ; and that we have come to 
the place where Self recognises itself as " Mind." Let us 
further suppose that inquiry into Self as Mind has disclosed 
the Mind as expressing itself by means of a three-fold 
activity, to which the names, Thought, Feeling, and Will 
have been given. 

I shall not take time to discuss at length the important 
facts connected with this three-fold mental quality. But, 
before proceeding with our special subject, it may be well, 
for a clearer understanding of that triple activity, to call 
attention to a few of these facts. 

Thought, Feeling, and Will are just what I have named 
them. They are not distinct beings, nor separate 
departments of the Self; — they are the Mind itself, active 
in these different modes, or relations. We must never 
lose sight of what we found in last week's lecture, that Self 
is an original personality. Its unity is not lost in its 
qualities. Whether, therefore, we study either thought, 
or feeling, or will, as though it were a distinct or separate 
faculty, let us remember that we are still studying but the 
one Mind, as thinking, or feeling, or willing. 

When, for example, the mind is related to objects as if 
it were looking at them ; holding them, as it were, at a 
distance ; perceiving them ; defining them ; knowing them 
figuratively ; bringing them before sight, the relation is 
that of thought. When, to change its activity, the mind, as 
it were, moves towards objects; appropriates them to itself ; 
figuratively touches them ; and suffers or enjoys through 



366 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PART II 



the efforts of such contact, the relation is that of feeling. 
The mental relation called the will is the mind directing, 
determining itself ; one way or another. 

In short, the so-called mental faculties are but ourselves 
as we are intellective, emotive, ox volitional. Each form of 
our personal activity can acquire a particular development, 
but none can be developed as separated from, or to the ex- 
clusion of, the others. 

For this reason there is a decided interaction of Thought, 
Feeling and Will. As we have seen, in Self there is an 
essential self-reflex. It follows, therefore, that this same 
reflex is actual in each of the mental modes. It is only 
through this reflex relation ; for example, that any science 
of Self, or such study as we have been pursuing, is possible. 
Because we are Self-conscious, w 7 e are able to think over 
our thinking ; to feel our feelings ; and to determine con- 
cerning our volitions. When we are conscious that we 
rejoice in some pleasure, or grieve over some fear, or when 
we resist some conviction, or yield to some passion, or 
strengthen some resolve, it becomes clear that each mode 
of the Self-activity is self- related, and also is related to the 
others. 

For the same reason our personal qualities reciprocally 
influence and direct one another. Whenever we think, 
we, at the same time, exercise some will upon our thinking, 
and have some feeling about it. Whenever we are sub- 
jested to feeling about anything, we think, more or less, 
about our feeling and exercise some will over it. And 
whenever we will, we can neither be wholly ignorant of 
that concerning which we will, nor be entirely indifferent 
to it. All facts go to show that, in the operation of these 
three functions, it is simply ourselves who are active in one 
or another relation ; these activities constituting in fact a 
three-fold relation of the original self-assertive Self as 
" Mind." 

When, consequently, we take up the subject of Thought, 
we have before us not an independent part, or instrument 
of the mind, but a mode by which the mind acts. 

The question properly arises now, — What, more defi- 
nitely, is thinking ? When the mind seeks to make the 



1887 



THE MIND'S PROCESS IN THINKING 



367 



presence of objects, of which it has become conscious, con- 
tinually clearer to itself, and if possible perfectly clear, it is 
thinking. If we name every kind of presence of objects in 
consciousness, Cognition, we may define Thought as the 
mind's effort to develop and to perfect Cognition. Cogni- 
tion commences with a primary, indefinite consciousness ; its 
end is reached in completely defined knowledge. 

From this we see that thinking involves three factors; 
first, a mind that thinks ; second, some object thought of; 
and third, a relation between the mind and its object, to 
which the general name " Cognition " may be given. 

Evidently, therefore, thought could not be aroused before 
there were some 'presence in consciousness to arouse it. That 
presence might come from without, or from within ; but it 
must precede any thought concerning it, A condition for 
thinking is some mental presence. The whole work of 
thought is to attend to, to perceive, to bring into distinct- 
ness, presentations already made ; to see clearly just what 
these presentations are. In thinking, therefore, subject and 
object remain apart : the subject is not to be changed by the 
object, nor object by subject. Intelligence, more or less 
clear, is all that we aim to reach by thinking. 

This fact suggests certain important moral considera- 
tions which should be discussed in a full treatment of our 
subject. The nature of Thought shows that intellectual 
work, in order to be excellent, should be as far as possible 
free from the influence of feeling, or of merely emotional 
desire. Thought should be unbiassed, passionless, proceed- 
ing directly to the end of producing clear, exact, definite 
cognition, or knowledge. 

At this point we have reached the subject of our present 
lecture. But befoie we begin to trace out the "Mind's Pro- 
cess in Thinking, " it will be of service to recall for a moment 
some of the facts which met us in cur last lecture. 

What is true of the study of the whole Self is true of 
investigation of its various modes. In the study of our 
mental process, therefore, we must justify the results of our 
work as all psychologic knowledge is to be justified ; that is, 
by the endorsement it may receive from each conscious 
Self through direct Self-Consciousness, The only, or ultimate 



368 



MID-LIFE MEMOEABILIA PABT II 



source of verification we have, is the essential reflex of Self 
upon Self. We must always, therefore, rely upon that, 
though, seemingly, we stand apart witnessing the various 
movements that the mind makes in bringing its objects 
clearly into consciousness. It is we who think and know ; 
and we must never forget that, unless we were always pre- 
sent to ourselves, no science of thinking could be in the 
remotest degree possible. 

To co-operate with direct Introspection, we shall here, as 
in all other psychologic study, therefore, use Memory, the 
marvellous conservative power with which our nature is 
endowed, and also such other agencies as we have already 
named. But while we use memory and other instrument- 
alities to co-operate with direct introspection, let us still 
bear in mind last week's lesson, that recognition ne- 
cessitates a previous cognition ; and that the first cognition 
involves the essential self-intelligence which is fundamental 
to Self-Consciousness, 

Thus prepared, we turn to our special subject. 

Thinking, as before said, is the mind at work seeking to 
develop and to perfect cognition ; that is, to bring clearly 
into consciousness whatever is present there. 

What process does it follow ? 

A complete tracing out of this process would lead us 
farther than we have time for. It would oblige us to 
study in its entirety the course of the^ production of 
cognitions, — as well from the side of the objects that are 
thought of, as from that of the thinking mind. But it 
will suffice for our present purpose to indicate some of the 
most prominent facts in the process generally. 

The genesis of cognition depends upon a two-fold 
quality of our being. We are each not only endowed with 
a directly outworking activity ; with an original tendency 
to act outwards, that is, with an essential Spontaneity, 
but we are also, by nature, passive. That is, we have an 
original capacity to be acted upon ; or, in other words, we 
have an essential Beceptivity. 

In cognition, therefore, there is what we may call the 
form, which is the result of the mind's spontaneity ; and 
the matter, which is what is received by the mind as it is 



1887 THE MIND'S PEOCESS IN THINKING 369 



affected by the object. So, in all our acts of knowing we 
work by this two-fold natural quality, — Spontaneity and 
Keceptivity. 

Spontaneity characterizes our whole being. As we have 
seen, it lies back of Self- Consciousness and makes it 
possible. It is, therefore, the condition of all cognition. 

Then, just as inevitably as cognition depends upon our 
outworking activity, so, also as certainly, it depends upon 
our capacity for being acted upon. Our whole development 
is the result of a constant interaction between ourselves and 
our surroundings. Spontaneous activity would not suffice 
for our development. We are parts of a realm of being, in 
which we, as all other parts, exist relatively for ourselves ; 
but only, also, as we are in relation with all other parts, 
We act, and we are acted upon. To the extent that we are 
acted upon we are receptive. A series of presentations is 
every moment entering consciousness ; through our senses 
from the outer world, also streaming up within, out of the 
mysterious depths of ultimate being. Our knowledge is the 
product of a toilsome effort we make to see clearly the 
presentations which are received within the conscious Self. 

A few words, in passing, as to the matter of cognition. 
It is exceedingly important that this be recognized as it 
really is, and for all that it is. This subject has received a 
great deal of attention among psychologists. It does not 
seem possible, all facts carefully studied, that we can 
escape the conviction that the matter of cognition is of 
more than one hind. I am confident that the presenta- 
tions in consciousness issue from more than one source. 
Our psychical receptivity is affected not only by a 
multitude of so-called " impressions," coming through our 
physical senses, but also by " presentations " from a source 
not at all explainable by Sensation. 

The bodily senses, for instance, are our medium of connec- 
tion ivith the external world. If we close our eyes, the whole 
outer universe is excluded from our sight. If we close our 
ears, we are in a silence none the less profound than the 
darkness. If disease injures taste or smell the whole domain 
of flavor and odor is withdrawn from us. If anesthesia is 
produced in any part of the body, touch there is gone. If 



370 MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PABT II 



sensation as a whole were to cease we should be entirely 
enclosed within unresponsive bodies. The whole outer 
w r orld would no longer be anything for us. With restora- 
tion "of sensibility, however, the excluded world would be 
again present to us. 

But what is it that comes to us through the senses ? Wc 
know that nothing more than separate and grouped sensa- 
tions are presented to us through them. The whole 
material of sense-perception is transmitted by them. What 
further happens in the process of cognition, is the result 
of the mind's own energy acting upon this material.. 

But are these separate and associated sensations the 
sum total of the material with which Cognition is concern- 
ed ? I cannot think so. There are presentations in Con- 
sciousness which, because of their content, cannot possibly 
have found their way through the senses ; nor, as we shall 
see, can they be the product of any limited experience, or 
of an agent of limited qualities. 

There is, for example, the thought, — Infinity. We 
know that all sense-experience is finite, and that our 
personal experience is limited. Yet, in some way, we 
have what can be shown to be a positive thought, referring 
to infinity. Our experience is of that which is always 
changing ; this thought has for its object that which never 
changes. Experience is with the many happenings of 
yesterday and to-day, — of what is in every direction finite ; 
this thought is of that which is without limit. We con- 
stantly speak of infinite Space, of infinite Time, and of 
infinite Existence. 

Then, we have also the thought of the Absolute ; of 
that which is all-inclusive and independent; which is 
without external relations. But where in experience, 
which is confined to that which is in every way relative 
and dependent, do we find a source for this thought ? 

Then, we have, too, the thought of that which is Per- 
fect ; of perfect Truth, of perfect Beauty, of perfect Good. 

It does not answer our question to say that these 
thoughts are extensions of experience, or are its negations, 
or are indefinite thoughts superimposed upon thoughts 



1887 



THE MIND'S PROCESS IN THINKING 



371 



which are definite. I shall not now try to show why. We 
shall return to this question in the closing lecture. 

But, meanwhile, it may be well to try to answer such 
questions as these : — How can we, with a sense-experience 
which is altogether of the finite, of the relative, of the imper- 
fect, apprehend unaided such thoughts as that of the Infinite, 
of the Absolute, of the Perfect ? How T could sense-experience, 
however prolonged in the individual, or in the race, or in 
myriad generations, produce any one of them. The ex- 
ternal world, so far as we can perceive it, exists in space, 
and in time, and is far from being perfect. The astro- 
nomer sees but the merest fragment of filled space. All 
known development for the world ; all tradition for man ; 
are included in the merest section of time. If, then, these 
thoughts of the Infinite, of the Absolute, of the Perfect and 
other thoughts kindred with them are not to be found in 
sensation, and can not possibly be the result of finite ex- 
perience, are we not, of necessity, drawn to the conclusion 
that they must be either received by the mind from an 
adequate source to become part of its material for cognition, 
or that the human mind which thinks them must itself 
be infinite, absolute, and perfect ? 

The latter of the alternatives cannot possibly be true. 
We have, therefore, but one legitimate conclusion, for our 
acceptance ; that is, that the human mind is essentially 
connected with that which is infinite ; with Being which is 
not only around and within us, but with Being which 
necessarily includes not only Self but the surrounding World 
also. The finite mind is, therefore, receptive of presenta- 
tions, not only from a finite world, but also from that 
which is infinite. 

In a word, 1 have been unavoidably led to the conclusion 
that as receptive we have not only "Sensation" to connect 
us w 7 ith the outer universe, but that w r e have also what, for 
lack of a better word, we may call "the Season," which re- 
ceives material by which we have apprehension of what we 
name the " Infinite," the "Absolute," and the " Perfect." 

So then, if at one extreme of our receptive consciousness 
are' "sensations ;" there seem to be, inevitably, at the other 
extreme what have been called "ideas" — or principles of the 



372 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



Reason. Because of the relations of our psychical recep- 
tivity, therefore, we seem to be furnished with both sense 
presentations and rational ideas, as the matter available 
for the purpose of Cognition. It does not seem possible 
to consider carefully all the facts of consciousness, and 
reach what shall be, in substance, any other conclusion. 

Having advanced thus far we may now take up what is 
particularly the subject of the present lecture : — the out- 
working of the mind's Spontaneity upon the given matter 
of Cognition. In bther words, we may now begin to 
follow " The Process of the Mind in Thinking.'' 

Logically, there is a regular succession of acts in this 
process. In a few moments we shall mark this succession 
in its regular order. Before doing that, however, I wish to 
call attention to a part of this process, an involuntary act 
of the mind, whose office is to prepare for the mind's volun- 
tary action ;— I speak of the Imagination. 

As soon, for example, as we turn towards a presentation 
made by the senses, we perceive not only the sense affection 
but an aGco?npanyi?tg image. Perception of the external 
world is always two-fold. The image, we can say, is not 
a product of direct sensation, else it would disappear with 
the cessation of the sensation. The image may be restor- 
ed long after the sensation has ceased. For instance, I 
saw a flower yesterday. It is not here now. But as I 
turn attention to it in memory, I reproduce it mentally,— 
form, color and odor. 

The mind spontaneously designs, figures, effects colors, 
and gives body to the separate sensations of sight, touch, 
and the like. 

Whether or not these images are real reproductions of 
that which appears in the senses is not a question which 
concerns us now. I believe that as representations they are 
true. I believe it can be shown that they truly represent, 
as far as representable, the presentation of objects which 
enter consciousness through the senses. But let it suffice 
now just to say that the imagining act is an invariable ac- 
companiment of sensation. 

Imagination acts also, as far as it can, upon ideas. We 
always seek to give ideas concrete and sensible forms. We 



18S7 



IDEAS, IMAGINATION AND IDEALS 



373 



create symbols for them. We endeavor, indeed, to give 
conception even to inconceivable thoughts, such as those of 
pure Space, and Time, and Infinity. It is for this reason 
that psychologists often make mistake in their arguments 
over the thought of Infinity, by confounding the image 
which we involuntarily seek to make, for example, of 
infinite Space, with the real Idea underlying it ; or by 
confusing some symbolic conception, as of infinite Time, 
with the true thought of Eternity. 

An "ideal" is the result of the effort of the Imagination to 
give the truest and most adequate form possible to an "idea." 
An "ideal" should be understood always as that, and be 
judged as that. The Eeason gives the perfect idea ; the 
Imagination evokes an ideal for the idea ; it does that by 
combining with the idea the highest concrete material 
which the mind possesses. Ideals are the mind's visions 
of that which is. They are continually being bettered and 
approximately realized, though they are never made per- 
fect, nor are they ever fully realized. There is an "ideal" for 
every aim that man makes towards perfection. Art has 
its ideals ; science, literature, morality, all human aims are 
expressed in ideals. The Ideal for Philosophy we have 
sought, in various ways, to make clear in these lectures, 
and we have seen how philosophic history is a record of a 
multiform development of this Ideal ; and how, through 
the growing knowledge of Man, the Ideal has been con- 
tinually approaching its realization. 

We come now to an examination of the voluntary 
activity of the mind in making Cognition clear. 

Our discussion, so far, has prepared us for an intelligent 
study of this activity. It has shown that the knowledge- 
seeking mind is endowed with power to remember and to 
give concrete images to the presentations offered it ; and 
further, it has shown that, through Sense and Reason, mul- 
titudes of impressions and ideas are offered to the mind 
as material for possible knowledge. 

1. The first voluntary movement of thought in reference 
to any presentation made in consciousness is to turn towards 
it. Metaphorically speaking, it must "look at it." This act 
is called Attention . Attention is the mind's response to 



374 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



what affects it. Attention may not always be consciously 
given ; and it may be evoked at times only by strong 
presentation. But, in any case, it must be given if any 
intellectual gain is to be made. Attention must actually be 
given : that is, attention must be the result of a volition, 
even though the mind is induced to act because of a painful 
stimulus. 

This first voluntary act of the mental Spontaneity is of 
exceeding importance in the development of Cognition. 
Attention necessitates the drawing away of thought from 
other things so that it may attend to the intruding object. 
Every moment numerous presentations are soliciting 
attention. Eyes, ears, and the other senses are all the 
time affected in various ways. A passing train, a striking 
bell, sunlight, clouds, odors, bodily discomfort, — innumer- 
able memories and ideas — may present themselves in 
Consciousness when it is exceedly important that all these 
should be ignored for the sake of some thing else. It is 
of great moment that the mind should be able to fix 
thought in one direction in the midst of .a host of solicita- 
tions. Our mental culture, its strength and maturity, are 
acquisitions secured as much through the alertness, force, 
directness, continuity and extent of attention as through 
anything else. Among immature minds it is very 
difficult to evoke, or to maintain, this mental energy ; 
while scholars and sages are often able to compel and to 
concentrate it even in the midst of mental stimuli which 
would be altogether distracting to the ordinary mind. 

The art of developing in one's self the power of attention, 
and of inducing it, if need be, in others, is one of the most 
important of the means necessary for the attainment of 
proper cognition, or knowledge. 

2. The second cognitive movement may be called Ap- 
prehension, or Perception. The mind seeks not only to 
look at, but, in figure, to take hold of, what is presented 
to it. That which the mind cannot reach or grasp, 
remains always really unknown. It is common at the 
present time to use the word " perception " for the kind of 
apprehension that is confined to sensations. When it is 
necessary I shall observe this distinction. But as the word 



1SS7 ATTENTION, PERCEPTION, DETERMINATION 375 



perception has a more familiar sound, and is much more 
generally used, than apprehension, I shall adopt it for the 
second all-comprehensive move in Cognition. 

Perception is a very unequal mental act. Some minds 
perceive rapidly and clearly ; some only slowly and 
confusedly. The power of perception depends largely 
upon native endowment ; but, in large measure, it is 
strengthened by proper culture. The more intellectual a 
mind may be, the clearer and more rapid will perception 
be apt to become ; while in those who are the subjects of a 
strong emotional sensitivity, perception is apt to be dim, 
or it may fail altogether. Feeling often comes between 
one's thought and the object one should perceive. For this 
reason certain sensations are called " absorbing," " trans- 
porting," " enrapturing," " ecstatic." Pure perception 
needs the cool, unexcited, self-controlled mood. 

3. By a combination of Perception and Attention, the mind 
advances to a third degree in the process of th inking, which 
may be called Determination. This is a highly important 
part of the cognitive movement. It is, in fact, the means 
by which knowledge is made definite, and the mind's desire 
is satisfied. Determination marks out, or defines, just what 
is perceived ; for example, a being or a part of being, or a 
quality or a relation of being ; and it refers one to another 
until the mind is satisfied ; that is until definition is made, 
or cognition, as far as desired, is secured. The more 
completely an object is determined, or defined, in its 
internal and external relations, the better is it known. 

These are the three successive voluntary movements of the 
mind in thinking ; that is, in developing Cognition, whether 
it be of any thing, or relation ; of a fact or principle ; of a 
sensation or idea. The mind, first, turns towards the 
presentation offered it ; next, it apprehends or perceives it ; 
and then determines or defines it, if possible, in the totality 
of its parts, qualities and relations. The succession is reg- 
ular and necessary. The three movements always follow 
in the same order, whatever may be their object. The 
Will initiates the movement ;— it may hasten or retard it, 
but it can not break up the succession. 

Let us now look somewhat more clearly at this cognitive 



376 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



act which we have named Determination. There are only 
two ways of knowing, or of determining the objects present- 
ed to us. We can either perceive them directly, as they are 
presented ; or we can know them as they are related to 
their causes or principles. That is, we gain knowledge, 
either by observation direct ; or by demonstration through 
that which we already know. These two facts concerning 
the method for gaining knowledge have been called Analysis 
and Synthesis. 

a. When we observe things just as they are presented, and 
try to determine them by describing their parts, qualities, 
and relations, we analyse them. 

b. On the other hand, when we connect objects to their 
cause or principle by some intermediate bond, as, say, " the 
middle term of the syllogism," we subject them to synthesis. 

Analysis and Synthesis are the two methods which 
guide the mind's procedure in developing and perfecting 
Cognition. Analysis is based upon observation ; it gives 
rise to what is called the inductive process of thought ; it 
includes all we know by experience, or as it is said, a 
posteriori. Synthesis is based upon whatever knowledge 
we may have of principles or causes ; it proceeds by what 
is called deduction. It starts from all that we know as 
above or beyond experience ; that is to say, a priori. 

These two methods of developing knowledge can be 
carried on each for itself. It is thus possible to observe 
the presentations in Consciousness, and to describe them ; 
that is, to engage in fact-getting, without seeking to ar- 
range the facts under their principles, or to reduce them to a 
system. It is possible, also, to assume some principle, and 
to deduce from that principle a system of thoughts, without 
having reference to whether or not there are any real facts 
which correspond to the thoughts. If the original principle 
be fully accepted as truth, it is possible to deduce subordin- 
ate truths from it. 

But the analytic and synthetic methods should never 
be carried on separately, if the end aimed at is the 
attainment of certain knowledge. The result of the work 
of each method is incomplete without the aid of the other, 

c. The full determination of objects ; the complete develop- 



1SS7 ANALYSIS, SYNTHESIS, CONSTRUCTION 



377 



ment of knowledge, requires the combination of the two 
methods in a third part of the process. This part we may 
name Construction, or Verification. 

Construction is the culmination of the development of 
Cognition, or is completed knowledge. It is attained by 
bringing the results of the two low r er parts of the method 
together, and verifying one by the other. Both Analysis 
and Synthesis should constantly be referred to one another 
from the very beginnings of the endeavor to gain 
exact and complete knowledge. 

By Analysis only facts can be obtained ; by Synthesis 
only deductions for w 7 hich, possibly, no corresponding facts 
exist. Through Analysis only we can gain no principle, 
or ground of determination ; through Synthesis only we 
have none of the indispensable results of observation. 
Combining the two, however, we are saved on the one 
hand from empty speculation, and on the other we are 
enabled to make discoveries which observation alone pos- 
sibly had passed by. When there is a perfect accord 
between Analysis and Synthesis ice have reached certainty. 
We then know things, as they are presented to us, and, 
also as they are related to their causes or principles. 

It is in this way, for example, that ordinary knowledge 
becomes really scientific ; also, hereby, the Philosophic Ideal 
finds increasing justification through an enlarging Science. 
And it is by this means that systems of Philosophy may 
approximate the realization of their pure Ideal. 

But so far we have been looking at only one part of "The 
Mind's Process in Thinking ; " that is, at those successive 
movements which the mind makes by virtue of its own 
impulses. In other words, we have been considering 
merely the subjective laws of Cognition. W e should also 
look at how this Process of Thought is affected by what, 
as w r e may say, is owing to the objects themselves. In 
other words, we ought to observe certain objective law T s of 
thought. 

In all development of knowledge, it is necessary that 
objects should be thought of just as they present themselves. 
For this reason, through Attention, Perception and 
Determination the mind should take hold of each object as 



378 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



the one object it is : that is, the mind should form a notion, 
or concept of it. Then, secondly, as all the objects of 
thought are found to exist in various relations, within and 
without, a second mental operation becomes necessary : 
this may be called judging ; — the mind forms 
judgments. This act would seem to complete the process, 
but the mind is induced to go farther. It takes its 
judgments as if they were simple notions and establishes 
relations between them ; that is, it judges judgments. This 
movement is called reasoning, or a drawing of conclusions. 

Through these three mental operations Cognition 
advances. The Concept, or Notion, is the simple apprehen- 
sion of an object. The Judgment is cognition of a relation 
between notions. Eeasoning is cognition of relations 
between judgments. 

The Notion has its equivalent in what is called the term. 
The Judgment is embodied in the proposition ; and 
Eeasoning done by means of the syllogism. 

At this point our chapter in Psychology opens into a 
special study which has for its object these fundamental 
operations in the process of thought. We have arrived at 
what is especially named, " The Science of Logic." 
Confronting the entrance to this science, however, w 7 e 
have reached the end aimed at in the present lecture. 
We have disclosed the beginnings of " The Mind's Process 
in Thinking." 

But, before we leave our subject, I wish to call attention 
to the bearing, of what I have been saying, upon " The 
Science of Logic ; and to some reflections, in general, upon 
the limitations which, by a great deal of modern usage, 
has been placed upon the name, " Logic." 

Logic, as accepted by many students of the mind, is the 
science which has for its object the three fundamental 
Functions and Operations of Thought, together with the 
Method by which Cognition is to be developed and 
perfected. As such, it is wholly a formal science. It has 
nothing whatever to do a with a consideration of the 
reality, or the unreality, of the material embodied in its 
terms, propositions, and syllogisms. As such, the science 
is like a mechanism w 7 hose correct combinations and 



18S7 



CONCEPT, JUDGMENT, REASONING 



379 



working are all that need be cared for. It supplies the 
machinery to be used in the other sciences. Mr. James 
says in his Manual, " The form of an argumeut is one 
thing, quite distinct from the various subjects or matter 
which may be treated in that form." " Logic " he describes 
as " the science occupied in. ascertaining all the general 
forms of thought which we must employ so long as we 
reason validly." " The very name 'logic ' occurs as part 
of nearly all the names recently adopted for the sciences. 
Thus geology is logic applied to explain the formation of 
the earth's crust ; biology is logic applied to the phenomena 
of life, and so on." 

But, while this is true, it should not be forgotten that 
Logic itself has its source in Psychology. Psychology 
may need logic to carry it forward ; but at the same time 
logic- needs psychical analysis to give it existence as a true 
science. A psychologic preparation is, therefore, necessary 
to guard the student against the formation of a partial or 
false logic ; and a logic thus prepared for is needed for a 
proper reaction upon psychology in its further develop- 
ment. 

I do not consider, for example, that that " Logic " has 
been properly prepared for which, however correctly it 
may disclose the forms of thought, obtrusively excludes 
fundamental psychologic truth from its terms, propositions 
and syllogisms. Nor do I consider that " Psychology " 
to have been properly studied whose logic denies some of 
the most essential forms of thought. I mean that a "Logic" 
which noticeably excludes the data of the Eeason that it 
may present those of Sense Experience ; or a "Psychology" 
whose logic depreciates the Deductive Process for the sake 
of exalting Induction, has, I am confident, transgressed 
the limits set for itself. Logic, if it is wholly a formal 
science, should be in every way unpartisan. It should not 
antagonize any widely honored judgment upon what 
composes the matter of thought and knowledge. 

The two sciences, Logic and Psychology, act and react 
upon each other so decisively that it is of great importance 
that the directing Logic should be reached through the most 
careful and comprehensive study of its source,— Psychology* 



380 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



My purpose in the present lecture has been to indicate the 
true psychologic approach to Logic by a logic which is 
itself true. 

But for all that, is the word " logic" dealt with scientific- 
ally in its being confined to a study of the forms of thought ? 

There should be, of course, the special science of " the forms 
thought." I am of the opinion, however, that the matter of 
Cognition should also be accepted as part of the domain of 
Logic ; or that it should be regarded, as at least, its legiti- 
mate complement. I have become convinced that the 
whole process of the mind in the production and develop- 
ment of Cognition : — from the side of the mind's Eecep- 
tivity, as well as of its Spontaneity ; regarding the matter 
of thought as w T ell as its forms, is an object worthy of 
specific scientific study. A Science of Cognition, — a science 
including not only Formal Logic, but setting forth also a 
complete Theory of Knowledge, is apparently justified by 
the series of facts we have to-day had before us. 

This Science, included within Psychology and inclusive 
of Logic ; having for its object " The Mind's Whole 
Process in Thinking," would, I believe, be of special service, 
not only for the attainment of a more complete knowledge 
of ourselves, but for the production and the clear recognition 
of the truths which are most beneficial to Mankind in their 
efforts to fulfil their purpose in life. 



FIFTH LECTURE 

Nature and Sources of Moral Obligation, 

In taking up the topic announced for to-day, we are 
dealing with a problem of the highest practical importance. 
. We enter a domain wider than that of Thought alone. 
We are about to consider ourselves as expressed in Con- 
duct ; as persons possessed of what is called Conscience and 
bound by a sense of Duty. We have set for ourselves the 
task of studying the nature, and of inquiring into the 
sources of Moral Obligation. To know the nature of 
moral obligation and its sources is to have gained the 
knowledge most needful for the fulfilment of the purpose 



1SS7 



WHAT IS MORAL OBLIGATION? 



381 



of human life. It is not necessary to say that the pro- 
posed study is beset with difficulties. 

The method for regulating Conduct is perfectly plain 
to every morally conscious being : — the individual con- 
science is the auditor beyond which there is no appeal. 
This authority is recognized in all moral exercise. That, 
however, which gives Conscience authority ; that which 
gives Man conscience at all, is not so apparent. Inquiry 
after this leads speculation into the very depths of our 
being. It has produced a problem over which the mind 
has labored ever since the moral sense became part of 
human experience. I wish to make what contribution is 
possible for me in aid of the solution of this problem. 

The present lecture, like our last, is a chapter from 
Psychology, We are referred for the data of Ethics to 
Psychology, because it is certain that Man is in essence, 
potentially at least, a moral being. The qualities which 
give him moral character are in his nature. If disclosed 
at all, they must appear in Self-Consciousness, and be con- 
firmed there. Even though it should be found that 
whatever moral quality man has is a direct endowment 
from a Source other than himself ; or that it becomes 
manifest in his interaction with his environment, still 
Psychology is the means to the discovery. However 
derived, or brought into activity, the Moral Sense is 
beyond question part of our psychical being, 

I may assume, to begin with, that no one of us doubts 
that Moral Obligation exists. But what is moral obligation ? 
When one is under obligation of any kind, we understand 
that he is bound to be, or to do, somewhat. Under 
obligation he is, as if he were in debt ; bound through his 
debt, and not liberated until the debt is satisfied. 

Now, when obligation is what is called " moral," it has 
become associated with the things and relations of 
life to which the names " good " and " evil," and 
"right" and "wrong," have been applied. Morality 
accepts the good and the right : it refuses the evil and 
the wrong. Man, under moral obligation, is therefore 
bound to be, and to do, that which is good. Pie is debtor 
to what is " good ;" that is, to be " good " and to do the 



382 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



"good." Nothing frees him from this obligation but its 
satisfaction. 

But, next we ask, how is this satisfaction made ? I 
must answer ; only by such a state of being, and by 
means of such acts as conform to the moral demand. 
Morality, then, has its domain in the condition and ex- 
ercise of whatever power immediately directs our conduct. 
That power is called the " Will." Moral obligation, there- 
fore, is directly associated with the human will. And, 
morally bound, the will is under obligation to determine 
and to accomplish in life, the " good." 

The factors of the Moral Problem are thus brought 
before us. 

But before we deal with them in the definite relations 
they bear to our particular subject, it is advisable for us to 
make more clear what, in the broadest interpretation of 
the term, toe understand by the human will, and also, in 
general, what we mean by the term " good!' This prepara- 
tory discussion will help us to see the way better among 
the intricacies involving our specific question. 

A careful psychical analysis shows that all our thoughts, 
our feelings, and also all our actions, must be referred to 
ourselves, as their immediate source. The slightest move- 
ment in our psychical life must be initiated directly by 
ourselves. This remains true even though inducement, or 
excitement, to action comes from that which is other than 
we are. 

For example, it is only when, and so long as, we think over 
anything that we think of it. We may be affected from 
without ; but even though the affection from outside is 
irresistible, the response, the attention, the feeling, comes 
from us. Our actions are ultimately initiated by us, and 
are continued by us. By virtue of our spontaneity we 
must, as it were, look out and go out, to meet and to act 
upon everything with which we are brought into relation 
if the relationship is to have any meaning for us. To this 
supreme power of the mind, the name " Will," in the 
broadest signification of the word, may be given. The Will 
is mans self-determining power, or rather, it is man 
himself directing himself. 



18S7 THE WILL AS PSYCHICAL SPONTANEITY 383 



Observe, now, the will's course in action. It is, in the 
last analysis, pure psychical effort. It is the natural 
outworking, the forthputting, of our personal power. What 
impels it ? Our own nature impels it, or, rather, it is the Self 
manifesting its energy. It is Self, as power, making effort, 
or expressing outwardly what it is, and has, within. No 
further explanation can be given of this ultimate activity. 
It simply is true of Man, as it is in some measure true of 
all living beings, that through original power he acts, or 
he expresses himself. The Will, in original quality, is 
identical with man's psychical spontaneity. In perceiving 
this fact we are at the very source of whatever charac- 
terizes us. 

But this original outworking power of our personal 
being does not proceed and reach its end by means 
of unqualified impulse. Along with this fundamental 
fact of spontaneous effort it should be remembered 
that every Self puts forth its power in a Universe 
filled with other powers and forces, whose activity 
meets him from every direction. In every direction, 
therefore, the determining power of each Self is found to 
be limited, so far as outward effect is concerned ; and, to 
a greater or less extent, to be conditioned as to how it shall 
act. 

For example, it may be the impulse of a babe to seize 
the moon ; but his little arms fail to stretch across the 
abyss between his mother's lap and the bright spot before 
him. When, however, the child learns that the moon is 
farther away than just outside his eyes, he accepts the 
conditions imposed upon him by the construction of things ; 
and he no longer tries to do this impossible thing. Or, to 
go to the opposite extreme of life ; — an artist wills to realize 
some dream of beauty in marble. But, strong as may be 
his impulse and clear his vision, he cannot act unless he 
accepts the necessary limits imposed upon him by the laws 
affecting marble, and his hand, and his tools. He may be 
inclined to despair when he finds his ideal and his power 
of realization widely apart ; but, when he learns that the 
beauty before his mind cannot be wholly reproduced to 
the bodily eye, he accepts the conditions of the relation of 



384 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



the Ideal and Real, and submits to seeing through his 
statue the goddess for whom it is his only possible outward 
image. 

Then, turning from without inward, the outworking 
power of man's being finds itself still f urther limited and 
conditioned, A man can no more escape from the limita- 
tions made by the parts and the qualities of his own 
nature than he can avoid the limitations occasioned by the 
material universe. Our effort in action cannot transcend 
ourselves. If, for example, the whole sum of our powers 
and relations is comprehended within thinking, and feeling 
and bodily action, evidently then, we cannot go beyond the 
limits thus established. Our outworking power must in- 
variably be made effective by means of thinking, and feel- 
ing, and through psychical deeds. Our own nature makes 
channels through which all personal force must issue. 

Moreover, as this energy proceeds from us, or, we would 
better say, is ourselves in action, it cannot contain what is 
not of ourselves. The stream, necessarily, is of its source. 
Our will must in some way have for the object it would 
effectuate that which is of our own nature ; either originally 
there, or accepted by us and appropriated by ourselves. 

Still further, our natural spontaneity has inner condi- 
tions resulting from our own psychical development. The 
personal conditions cannot be avoided. An action is not 
only limited by our nature, but, also, it is conditioned by 
the development of the two special mental relations which 
we have with ourselves and to the world ; that is, by the 
resultant state of our thought and of our feeling. Our psy- 
chical spontaneity takes its direction from what we feel 
and what we think. No will is ever exercised over that 
of which one is totally ignorant, or about which he is 
totally indifferent. 

It is true that personal spontaneity, which I have identi- 
fied with the Will is, in original quality, pure impulse. But, 
as Impulse only, it lies below the sphere of Self-Conscious- 
ness ; and is characteristic of the animal rather than of 
man ; and of life in general rather than of human life. Of 
course, consequently, as purely natural impulse, psychical 



1887 



MEANING OF THE TEEM " GOOD " 



385 



spontaneity seeks expression without relation to either 
Self-conscious thought, or to feeling as affected by thought. 

If I have made my meaning clear, you understand that 
I name our Psychical Spontaneity " Will," only so far as 
that spontaneity is involved in the three- fold differentiation 
of Self into Thought, Feeling and Will, — the differentiation 
which results in the mind, as we learned some time ago, 
because of its relation to Self and the World, and as it is 
involved in a developing Self-Consciousness By the Will 
I mean always the natural outworking of our personal 
power ; accomplishing whatever is possible for it in inter- 
action with our surroundings, and under the conditions 
imposed upon it from the two other modes of our psy- 
chical activity, — Thought and Emotion. 

Let us now, in the same general way in which we have 
looked at the Will, answer the question " What do we 
mean by the term "good ?" The underlying signification of 
this word is this ; — a thing is good token it conforms to the 
reason for which it exists, or when it realizes its natural 
purpose. In other words, when a thing is as it ought to 
be, it is "good and that thing is a good which is as it 
ought to be. 

For example ; the pencil with which I wrote the sentence I 
have just spoken is a good pencil. Why? Because it ought to 
be satisfactory write with ; and it is. This paper is " good " 
because it realizes the purpose for which it was made. It 
is neither too thick, nor too thin ; it is durable, and it is suit- 
able for pencil use. An apple is " good " when it embodies 
what is required of an apple; — when it realizes the notion 
or conception of an apple, it is as it ought to be. An 
animal is "good," say, when it is healthy, well-formed , or 
when, in other ways, it meets our notion of it as, for in- 
stance, in speed, strength, kindness, and other qualities. 

So, also, a man is "good" when he is as he ought to be : 
— in other words, a man is "good " when the man is, and 
lives, according to the requirement of the notion of a Man. 
When his whole nature in all its parts and qualities re- 
ceives harmonious development, and is fully expressed in 
life, then the man is " good." The development of a whole 
Human Life, as mind and body, in thought and feeling, in 



386 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PART II 



all its relations with Nature, with Mankind, with Self, 
and with the Being from whom all that exists has come, 
is " good " for man, and makes the man " good.*' 

No one can reasonably doubt that the purpose for which 
a man exists is to realize in life his nature as Man. A 
man can do no more than that ; or wholly other than that ; 
while doing less than that his life continues incomplete. 
To do just that, is what he ought to do ; and what 
one ought to do is ones good. The human being, in the 
totality of his parts and qualities is, therefore, under the 
obligation to express this totality in life ; that is, to show 
in all his separate thoughts, his feelings and his acts what 
is his " good." 

Now, that which is constantly present in a series of 
events, or things, or expresses the regular order according . 
to which the series should appear, is called a " law." The 
" Law " for the outworking of the personal power for each 
human being is therefore the " Good." 

In general, therefore, "good" is the law of the will. And 
when this law is put under the form of obligation, the will 
is subjected to the command, " Will the good, and do the 
good." 

What bearing, however, have the general facts we have 
been considering upon our fundamental assertion that the 
will is the natural out- working of our personal power ; the 
expression of our essential spontaneity ? 

From all that we have seen, we have hedged in the will 
with limits in every direction. The will is not only under 
the obligation which we have just formulated into a law ; 
it is conditioned, also, by myriad external and internal forces 
and things; and it is limited by the nature of the Self 
whose determining power it is. This brings up in a pre- 
liminary way, as you probably have anticipated, the ques- 
tion of the will's freedom ; a question which every student 
of Ethics must meet and try to answer. 

In this general preparatory discussion we are not ready 
to deal with the question at length. It may be in place 
here, however, to consider what may legitimately be called 
freedom Joy the will. 

If by the will's freedom is meant a power to act without 



1887 WHAT IS "FREEDOM FOE THE WILL?" 387 



reference to the law to which we have said the will is relat- 
ed, then the will is not free. Lawlessness is not the 
thinkable privilege of any being. If the fact of obligation 
is incompatible with the idea of freedom, then, too, freedom 
does not exist. If conditions for the will's exercise are to 
be regarded as hostile to real liberty, the facts of our ex- 
perience in willing prove that the will has no freedom. Or, 
if by freedom for the will is meant power to transcend the 
limits of human nature, of which it is the determining 
power, then of course we must say the will is not free. 
And if by freedom is meant power to disregard in action 
the essential qualties and things of the outer world, then, also, 
the will is not free. Moreover, if by freedom is meant no 
reference whatever to what we think and Jeel, then, further, 
the will has no freedom. If, in order to be free, the will must 
be independent of all conditions, internal and external, of all 
things and facts within and without, then evidently the will 
is not free. There is, and there can be, no such freedom in 
a universe of beings, each of whom is striving towards 
self-expression. 

In the nature of things, limitations and conditions for 
each individual necessarily exist. Whatever freedom there 
is for any one must be found within, and in reference to, 
these limits. If a will is in any sense free, its liberty 
must co-exist with the fact that, in its exercise, it expresses 
some part or quality of the nature of that of which it is the 
determining power ; and does this as conditioned also by 
the constitution of external things ; and as in association 
with a personal intellectual and emotional culture. 

We have now brought before us, as far as we can in this 
hasty sketch, the fundamental facts, viewed in the most 
general way, which concern the Will ; and also what con- 
stitutes "the Good," and the relation between the Will and 
"the Good." 

In order to approach our subject in its specific and prac- 
tical phases, let us glance at the "Will in practice ; that is to 
say, at voluntary life. 

All through our conscious existence we are producing 
a succession of volitions which find some kind of mani- 
festation in inner, or outward act. Our volitions are made 



388 



MID-LIFE MEMOBABILIA PART II 



in the midst of an indefinite number of possible acts of 
willing. Our volitions must also take place one at a time. 
This necessity makes us arbiters in the midst of the many 
volitions that are possible for us. Our separate acts of 
willing are, therefore, either acceptances or rejections. We 
are each moment willing this, or willing not that ; doing or 
determining not to do. Our lives, consequently, so far as 
they are effected by the will, are the result of a constant 
succession of choices. 

But how does the Will exercise its " power of choice? " 

As we have seen, the will is by nature under the general 
law ; " Will the good and do the good/' Does man's 
will conform to this law in life ? That is, do our wills 
always in choice follow this natural direction ? If I were 
to answer, " Yes," no one would endorse the assertion. 
Certainly not in the form under which it here stands. All 
experience within and without, you would say, denies that 
we give obedience to it. Error and crime ; guilt, penitence, 
remorse and despair ; all the sin and shame of the human 
world, are evidence against it. Every moral consciousness, 
you would say, is certain that the law of the will is not 
obeyed. 

Nevertheless, there remains the fact that the Will is 
essentially the outworking, personal force of the nature of 
Man. Also, the fact remains that to realize the nature of 
anijthing is to secure in some form its good ; and that a 
nature realized is good. Where, then, is the solution of this 
evident contradiction ? For, beyond doubt, a momentous 
contradiction confronts us. 

Examine more closely this subject of choice. I suppose 
no w r ould deny that every one of us could, and does, choose 
a great number of things which, in themselves, and in 
some relation to us, are good. Everything that is in har- 
mony with our nature is, in some degree, a good. There 
are, therefore, as many possible goods for us as there are 
things and relations which express our nature ; or are in 
accord with it. There are countless possible pleasures, 
each one of which is good ; pleasures for body and pleasures 
for mind. The instinctive aims of life, like those for 
health, honor, personal freedom, benevolence, purity, etc., 



1887 THE DIRECTION OF PEESONAL " CHOICE " 389 



are all goods. Let the attainment of these pleasures or 
instinctive aims be seen to be possible, and the will naturally 
turns towards them and seeks to realize them. But, of 
course, they cannot all be willed at once. Personal energy 
cannot at one time be directed towards all. One at a time 
must be chosen. 

But what directs each separate choice ? Evidently, no 
choice can be made unless under conditions found in the 
intellectual, or emotional state of him who wills. Feeling 
naturally inclines the will towards the object which is most 
in harmony with one's nature ; that is, which is least dis- 
turbing, or which is followed by most pleasure. Intelligence 
naturally inclines the will towards the object which, through 
perception or judgment, is seen to be most suited, either 
immediately or remotely, to fulfil the purpose of life. The 
result of the separate and united influence of thought and 
emotion upon the will is to lead to a choice of that which 
is judged, or felt to be, the better among possible goods ; 
and presumably the best. But the terms " better " and 
" best " are relative. They result from comparison. The 
subject of choice among goods becomes, therefore, very 
complex. What is better for one may not also be better 
for another, all circumstances considered. Then, what is 
better at one time may not be better when the situation is 
changed. Moreover, ignorance may lead to an erroneous 
choice; and feeling may impel the will correctly, for 
itself, but wrongly in relation to the judgment. Observe, 
however, that the Will, in itself considered, is not at fault; 
the better or the worse result of choice proceeds from the 
thought and the feeling conditioning it. 

But choice, it is said, is not always made between 
relative " goods." There are things that really are " evils," 
accompanying the possible goods of life ; and human 
experience is full of evil choices. This fact cannot be 
denied. 

But whence come, what are called, " evil " choices ? 
A man, for example, chooses to steal. Why ? He desires 
something that belongs to some one else. Of course, we 
cannot say that possession of wealth is, in itself, an evil. 
Because of an instinct of our nature we seek to obtain that 



390 



MID-LIFE MEMOEABILIA PAET II 



which will give us pleasure and make life easier. In itself, 
the gaining of property is a good. The desire of the thief 
thus far is good. His act is evil. But is not his act "evil" 
because he puts a personal "good" above the good of some 
one else ? He serves self-interest by actually disregarding 
duty to a fellow man. He either does not know that it is 
wrong to deprive others of their property for his own 
service, or, if he knows, he lets mere desire, rather than 
judgment, direct him. Or, to take a grosser case, a man 
determines to commit murder. He determines to do an 
" evil." But why ? The taking of human life at times be- 
comes a duty. Self-defense, the defense of family, of home, 
and of country, at times, justifies it. The murderer may 
seek to free himself from some awful misery by his act ; or, 
he may determine t3 take justice into his own hands for 
some great abuse done him ; or, possibly, swept away by 
the demand of some overpowering passion, he may do this 
deed. As with' the thief, so with the murderer ; he puts 
some personal "good," that is in itself good, above the rights 
of some one else. Like the thief, he either does not know 
that it is wrong to take human life for the sake of self- 
gratification, or, if he knows, he yields to feeling rather 
than to judgment. 

One evil choice alone seems to deny the law underlying 
what we ha ve been saying ; — that of suicide. This "evil" 
seems to be the annihilation of all possible good in the de- 
termination of the choice. But there are those who have said 
that, when a man is in irremediable poverty, or unconquer- 
able disgrace, or in utter physical helpleseness and suffering, 
he would much better terminate his own life than live with 
it as a burden, and as a torment to himself and to all who 
are around him. Like thief and murderer, the suicide 
either does not know that it is wrong to kill himself ; or, if 
he does know, he prefers the freedom from torture which 
he may find in death, to life as he has life. 

We need not, however, multiply examples to illustrate 
the position taken. Human history, life around us, and 
our personal experience are full of confirmation of the judg- 
ment that human choice, whether good or evil, is made 
with some form of what, in general, may be called "good" 



1887 THE CONSCIENCE AS ARBITEE OF " CHOICE " 391 

in view. The evil of an act is not in the act itself. It lies 
in the relation which the act bears to what is associated 
with it. The Will has but one motive ; and that is, in 
some way, to realize in life what is in, or is in harmony 
with, the nature of the being of which it is the determining 
power. The one law. and the practice of the Will is to 
effectuate in some form " the good." The Will like every 
other object in existence is under law ; and its law is, to 
speak generally, the Good. 

We come now to the deciding consideration. While 
what has been, said is true, it is altogether another question, 
whether or not the choices of the Will are always those 
which, in view of all facts, it ought to make. Of itself each 
will, as I have said, always chooses that which in some 
form is a good. It does this as inevitably as that physical 
instinct is always directed towards pleasure. But all good 
is not, from a moral point of view, the good that ought to 
be done ; nor is all choice the right choice, when its rela- 
tions are taken into account. 

So far our discussion has been carried on without reference 
to the complexity of the organization of Human Nature; 
and without considering Man's myriad relations to other 
beings ; and without considering the gradation that is 
thereby necessitated among possible choices. 

Now, however, -that we turn to the question of what in 
particular, the Will ought to do, as contrasted with what, by 
nature, it does do, we enter the exceedingly important 
region of specific inquiry known as Morality. We have 
now to examine that arbiter of human choice called the 
Conscience ; to inquire into questions of Duty ; to meet 
the fact of Moral Obligation, and to see wherein we are 
made responsible for our conduct. 

The Moral Problem, you observe, does not originate 
in the natural operation of the Will. Were natural volition 
all that were to be considered, we could no more speak of 
morality for Man than we can speak of morality for an 
animal, or a plant. Morality comes into existence because 
man is a Self-conscious being, and thereby is conscious 
of his relation, through his Self-determining power, to other 
beings and things, and of the interaction of this power with 



392 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



the modes of his psychical activity, named Thought and 
Feeling. 

Involved in Self-Consciousness the Will is no longer 
mere impulse, or merely an instinctive expression of one's 
nature. It has become so connected with the intel- 
lectual activity that one recognises the fact of the exercise 
of his will ; then, this exercise is so involved in what 
we think, that it receives through this relation the char- 
acter of intelligence. When the Will has become through 
Self -Consciousness ivhat ice understand as intelligent, 
Morality appears. As conscious of Self, Man receives 
character as the moral being. His intellectual activity 
under his Self-Consciousness leads him to examine into the 
parts and qualities of his nature ; to discern their proper re- 
lations ; to seek for knowledge of what is around him, and 
to discover what his relations are to his environmont. 

Out of this knowledge he learns to make such distinc- 
tions as are embodied in the words, " rights " " duties ; " 
and gradually he classifies these rights and duties. Eights 
and duties he learns are things which he should observe 
and perform in a proper order. Therewith, appears the 
intelligent sense of ought ; and the sense of ought implies, 
or becomes, that which is called the Conscience. 

Conscience is the act of Man's mind declaring under Self- 
Consciousness what one ought to be and to do. By means 
of Self-Consciousness, therefore, the natural law of the Will 
becomes organized into a system of duties for the practice 
of which we hold ourselves, and recognize ourselves as held, 
responsible. Morality and moral obligation exist, therefore, 
through the interaction of the will with thought and feel- 
ing under Self- Consciousness. Moral obligation has no 
place in human life outside the Self-intelligent domain. 

This being the fact, how important it is that both 
the intellectual and emotional modes of our activity 
should be advanced to their most complete development ! 
How exceedingly important it is, then, that knowledge 
should be perfected, and that feeling be harmonized with 
knowledge ! With their full harmony secured, the Will 
would tend to direct one's life always towards its perfect end, 
It would seek, above all, the realization of the highest Good 



1887 THE PK0CESS OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT 393 



Thereby, all subordinate goods would in time be known 
and be served in their proper places. Man's purpose as 
existent in the world would then be fulfilled. 

But it is just because, so far in human development, 
perfect knowledge has not been gained, and not yet a per- 
fect co-operation of thought and feeling secured, that the 
"Will so often misdirects life ; that, consequently, each hu- 
man being is so seriously liable to error and sin ; and that, 
while on one page human history is joyous, pure and 
sublime, it is on others sorrowful, guilty and tragic. 

Glance along the course of human development and 
note the illustration there of the principles we have been 
discovering. In the history of every human being, life 
begins under the sway oimere instinct; all primary human 
impulse towards action originates in immediate personal 
want ; — natural impulse and inclination are, at first, the solo 
motive to human action. In infancy there is no self-con- 
scious power of judgment. There is, then, no law for 
feeling other than that which pleases or displeases. All 
primary desire is measured by pleasures and pains, 
whether they are those of body or mind. 

In the beginnings of life, therefore, it cannot be said 
there is any evil. Life is then below the moral level. The 
babe can know of no good except of that which is the 
source of pleasure to it. Also, the babe can know of no 
evil except of that which causes it pain. At this stage of 
human growth the Will cannot go wrong ; it acts under 
the innocence, or rather the immorality, of Nature. So 
long as human life remains without Self-conscious know- 
ledge, instinctive volition is its proper, in fact its only 
possible, law. 

But the human being is not wholly an animal ; and a child 
cannot, if normally organized, remain in an animal-like 
condition. Gradually, by means of the instinctive out- 
working of his nature in interaction with his surroundings, 
and because he is a human being and not only an animal, 
the child is led to reflect, and to discover how, in his relation 
to all that is around him, he may best put forth his 
impulses and gratify his desires. Self-Consciousness, in a 
primary form, then appears. The growing mind begins 



394 MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PART II 



to learn, through conflict and pain, that Self cannot be 
served without at the same time being compelled to take 
into account the aims and desires of other beings. At this 
period of growth pain is a profitable teacher. 

Then, intelligence and the power of thinking continue 
to develop. The child begins is some degree to generalize, 
and to discover laws. Through pain, probably as chief 
source, he at length recognizes that for the sake of his own 
welfare, if not for that of another, some things were 
better done and others were better left undone. 

Out of the necessities conditioning the continuance of his 
existence in the midst of the beings and the things of the 
world, the child, simply on the ground of self-preservation, 
slowly forms a body of pleasures which he knows he may 
seek and does seek, and recognizes certain acts as connected 
with pains which he can avoid and does avoid. His 
conduct, thereby, tends to become prudent. With the 
acceptance of prudence as a regulative motive of the will, 
transition towards morality in a rudimentary form occurs. 
This mental mood is not morality, properly so called ; that 
is, as morality comes in the further development of human 
nature ; that is, as you and I, and vast numbers of the 
present mankind, are compelled to acknowledge it. It is 
rather a prescience of the moral sense ; it is selfishness 
undergoing transformation, or metamorphosis. At this 
degree of human growth, both thought and feeling work 
within the limits of pleasure and pain. 

Were it possible to fix the human individual at this 
stage of advance ; in other words, were it possible to arrest 
man's development here, the highest attainment of conduct 
would be marked by a prudent selfishness. Self-preserva- 
tion would be the true law of right. Might and cunning 
would be the means by which to obey the law. The Will 
would find its range within only these limits. 

No individual life, however, among the mankind with 
which you and I are connected goes steadily through the 
course of growth I have here outlined. The waking Self- 
Consciousness of the children who are born within our 
present human Society meets im?nediately a highly 
developed morality; and they are soon taught to measure 



1887 



THE ULTIMATE MEASURE OF CONDUCT 



395 



conduct by that. You and I came to Self-Consciousness in 
homes where the Moral Law in its higher forms is known 
and acknowledged. We were made to feel its authority 
from the d awnings of our Self-recognized intelligence. 

But no careful observer of child-life fails to see that the 
degrees of growth of which I have been speaking are those 
through which human nature tends to pass in its develop- 
ment out of the merely instinctive life with which it begins. 
And no one, certainly, can look abroad over the varied and 
unequal expression of the life of Mankind, generally, and not 
discover that & prudent selfishness in one form or another, 
and even less intelligent motives, operate more or less 
widely in human affairs. 

There are many moralists I know, who, in view of the 
past and present of Humanity, measure Morality wholly 
by prudence, by self interest, by utility and like standards. 
But the process of growth toward the higher Morality 
which I have been describing is made clear by a compre- 
hensive look at human history. There have been ages in 
the career of Mankind in which evidently no higher law for 
conduct was thought of than a well regulated selfishness. 
But it has not been possible for Humanity, speaking of 
the race as a whole ; nor is it possible for individuals in 
the most advanced portions of Mankind at present ; to 
remain at this stage of moral growth, — that of selfishness 
modified by prudence. 

Man has within his nature that which, inevitably at 
sometime, leads him not only away from the sway of mere 
impulse, into life regulated by a prudent selfishness, but be- 
yond and above that. Speaking of the race we can say that 
the conviction was long ago aroused among many that 
mere pleasure and pain, or the prudent gratification of 
selfish propensities, is not, for Mankind, the ultimate 
measure of conduct. During Man's growth, in the midst 
of a natural struggle for existence ; while seeking personal 
welfare through instinctive impulse, and by means of 
selfish prudence ; there have been gradually disclosed to 
him, — not, however, as the product of his progress but as 
incident in the course of his progress, — ideas which are the 
crown and glory of human nature ; ideas of the Reason 



396 MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PART II 

which mark the moral consciousness, and which charac- 
terize man as, essentially, the moral being. These ideas 
have appeared slowly ; at first in very imperfect form, and 
often, for a long time, confused with the lower impulses. 
But their appearance at all was the sign and the condition 
that indicates the true human dignity. 

When the mind once had become enabled to recognize 
that all personal goods are systematically related to one 
another, and are dependent upon one Ultimate Good, as 
their warrant and standard ; that all rights for Self and 
others are embraced in a proper order within an Absolute 
Right, by which they must be regulated ; that there is 
Law for each will, which also is Law for all wills ; when 
these truths were once recognized, then, for the first time, 
human life had become truly conscious of Moral Obliga- 
tion and was clothed with responsibility. 

Now, were it the fact that Man while advancing from 
one degree to another in his elevation to this dignity, had 
been enabled to put wholly behind and beneath him the 
motives and methods of conduct which prevailed through 
each inferior degree of his development, Human Life would 
have been, and now would be, but a glorious progress 
onward and upward. And when the really moral level 
had been reached, life would have begun only a steady 
advance towards perfection. But it is the fact that Man 
has not in the past subjugated, and does not yet subjugate 
wholly, his inferior modes of life ; that is, become their 
undisputed master. 

Each human being is ichat ice may style an epitome of 
his own past, and is also an heir of the past of the Human- 
ity whence he is bom. Man is thus the microcosm, or "little 
universe." So then, although a human being may have 
attained to the dignity which we have named "the con- 
scious moral sense," he yet retains within his constitution 
much of mere animal impulse, and of the motives and habits 
of conduct which are the resultant of the interaction, in 
his ancestry and himself, of animal instinct and the higher 
psychical promptings essential in his being. Necessarily, 
therefore, he is still affected by a multitude of motives which 
range from the lowest to high degrees in moral value. 



1887 



THE WAY INTO MOEAL FBEEDOM 



?97 



Then, to the degree to which a human being has become 
morally conscious, he becomes sensitive to the power of the 
lower impulses affecting him, and, at length, he arrives at 
that elevation of moral uplift where he is prompted to 
declare " when I would do good evil is present with 
me." He gains the mood of the great Christian 
Apostle, whereby he is assured that there is " a law in his 
body warring against the law of his mind." 

Although he has received and has acknowledged the 
Moral Ideal, he finds that that ideal is perpetually imperilled. 
Although his emotion tends to become pure in accordance 
with the ideal set before the mind, he knows that that is 
constantly beset from below by what has become unworthy 
his approval and use. Because of this fact, what we name 
"moral conflicts" arise within him. Hence, inner and outer 
temptations strive against the mind's higher aspirations ; 
hence, the evil effects in the life of overmastering passion 
and betrayed judgment ; hence sins follow ; and then, as 
the violated soul comes to itself a keen sense of guilt, 
accompanied by the misery of penitence and remorse, 
arises with the anguished cry, " Wretched one that I am 
who shall deliver me ? " 

Deliverance may be found. But the only possible 
deliverance from this bondage comes from yet more il- 
lumining thought and more purified feeling. When the 
mind has once been enabled to see clearly the truth which 
is really implicit in all moral development; namely, that 
the sense of Moral Obligation has its source, ulti- 
mately, in an Idea of absolute Good and Right as the 
law of the Infinite Will, then the human Will tends to 
work forward serenely towards the full realization of 
human good. 

I am led to say, therefore, that, conscious of God as the 
Source of all beings ; as the Creator of all things high and 
low ; as Ruler ordaining increasing order and harmony 
among his subjects ; as Law-giver to whom the human 
person is responsible, the Will of man has received the 
faultless incentive to lead it steadily towards the perfect 
goal. But until this supreme consciousness has been 
reached, Moral Obligation, however imperative it may seem 



398 



MID-LIFE MEMOEABILIA PART II 



to be, lacks unquestionable sanction, and human life 
suffers from a perpetually uncertain moral conflict. With 
a real consciousness of God, however, as the ultimate 
Source of Moral Obligation, Man will have found his 
highest Good, and will be enabled gradually to range 
within and under that all subordinate goods in their 
proper order. The Will, thus ennobled, no longer allows 
one to depend for its chief motive upon pleasure and pain, 
however much pleasure, happiness and peace may accom- 
pany its acts. The natural law will remain, but it will be 
obeyed as it ought to be. Separate "goods" will be sought 
in their proper places and relations , everything in its order, 
and each good gained for its own sake, as good, and 
purely as the good. " The Will of God " as disclosed through 
faithful research in Science, and by maturing Reflection, is 
acknowledged to be the law for the will of Self-conscious man. 
Through obedience under such discoveries Moral Obligation 
becomes satisfied. Thereby, at last, the Will has become 
truly free. 

The great Medieval poet, in his sublime vision, summed 
up the whole content of true morality in the intuition that 
in human life, when exalted to a Divine consciousness, 

The will rolls onward, like a wheel 
In even motion, by the Love impelled 
That moves the sun in heaven and all the stars." 

But is this consciousness of God possible to man ? 

Let the history of Religion answer. Out of its many 
replies, there has come what in substance is but one 
affirmation. If w 7 e inquire of Christianity, it reveals to us 
the " Fatherhood of God ;" and it promises to the ascending 
Humanity a sense of divine childship, — a ''Brotherhood/' — 
in a world wherein shall dwell perfect righteousness, love and 
peace. If we follow the career of Mankind in their Social 
Evolution, we find, from the earliest known records onward, 
an ever-growing moral power, prophetic of the final reign 
of justice, philanthropy and harmony. And if we trace 
the Philosophic Search from its beginnings, we discover a 
constant approximation towards the realization of an Ideal 
which sets forth, as known, a system of truth/beauty and 



1887 



THE PRINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY 399 



good, in which all beings and events are bound together in 
an order that draws its existence from one infinite and 
eternal Principle, — from the Being who is omnipotent and 
wise Purpose for the Universe, and who is Mind and 
Moral Person for Man. 

It remains, therefore, for us to learn, if we may, whether 
the Philosophic quest we have been following in these 
lectures, can find the perfect Principle, which exists, not 
only for Thought, but which, at the same time, must be 
acknowledged as the absolute Reality for all existence, 
whether of Thought or of the outer World. It shall be our 
task when we next come together to show how this quest 
has been met. 



SIXTH LECTURE 

Apprehension and Real Worth of 
The Principle of Philosophy 

We go back now 7 to our starting point. In bringing 
these lectures to a close I wish to show the real grounds 
for the claim I made at their beginning ; namely, that 
Philosophy arises from the assumption of an Ideal in 
which the Variety of the Universe appears bound together 
in, and by means of, ultimate causal and substantial 
Unity. It is my purpose to make it evident that the 
Philosophic Ideal is not a mere Intellectual Product, but 
that it has its source in adequate, objective Reality. To 
this end, I ask you to follow 7 with me a course of reason- 
ing w 7 hich, so far at least as my own speculations are con- 
cerned, has steadily thrown a clearer light upon this 
profoundest of the problems which the mind of man has 
met. We can follow 7 this reasoning here, for the most 
part, only by means of its main data ; but that which we 
shall observe, will. I think, indicate distinctly what is 
needed for its thorough development and completion. 

As our point of departure, we recur to the fact in our 
given definition of Philosophy that its determining char- 
acteristic is signified by the word " System," or "Organism." 

What do we mean by these words? 



400 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PAUT II 



A system is a whole in which all the parts exist, not as 
a mere sum, or aggregate ; — they are essentially related to 
one another by means of a common bond which makes 
them a true whole ; that is, by what unifies them. 

Bishop Butler gave the following illustration of what he 
called the idea of a system. " Let us instance," he said, 
" in a watch Suppose the several parts of a watch taken 
to pieces, and placed apart from each other. Let a man 
have ever so exact a notion of these several parts ; unless 
he considers the respect and relations which they have to 
each other, he will not have anything like the idea of a 
watch. Suppose these several parts brought together and 
anyhow united ; neither will he yet, be the union 
ever so close, have an idea which will bear any resem- 
blance to that of a watch. But let him view these several 
parts put together, or consider them as to be put together, 
in the manner of a watch ; let him form a notion of the 
relations which these several parts have to each other, — all 
conducive in their respective ways to this purpose, showing 
the hour of the day, and he has the idea of a watch." 

The word organism has a meaning similar to that of 
system. An organism is a whole of which the parts are, 
reciprocally, means and end. It is a whole, the functions 
of whose parts are essential to the existence of a whole 
and to each of the parts. It is a whole whose parts are 
mutually dependent, made so by their relations to a 
common unity. The human body, for example, is an 
organism. 

The notion of system applied to a collection of thoughts 
requires, therefore, that all the thoughts shall be brought 
into mutual relations by being arranged under one 
thought ; a thought which shall be as life, or soul to them. 
No thought in a system can be isolated. Its purpose and 
worth are involved in the including unity. 

Now the chief characteristic of Philosophy being that of 
system or organism, there must be in Philosophy one 
Thought under which, and in which, all other thoughts are 
contained, and by which they are reciprocally determined 
as parts of the intellectual whole. Philosophy, therefore, 
involves an intellectual plurality comprehended in unity. 



1SS7 



rHE PEINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY 



401 



Our present interest is directed particularly towards that 
quality, or fact, which gives to Philosophy its systematic 
character, I mean Unity. Our search is for the One 
Thought by which all thoughts are organically bound 
together. 

Moreover, this purpose is two-fold. We are to seek, 
not only to discover the prevailing intellectual unity 
of Philosophy ; it is of the highest importance that 
we should become able to assure ourselves also 
concerning the question whether or not the Philosophic 
Ideal is drawn from. Eeality. The Philosophic Ideal may 
be true or not true ; it may be merely a mental product, 
or it may be necessitated because of an objective Eeality. 

Philosophy, consequently, has two relations to us ; first, 
subjective, that is, as a mental system merely, not requir- 
ing any unity but one which we may of ourselves establish 
for it in thought. And next, objective, that is, as a system 
of truths which are necessitated thereby to having a Real 
Unity ; that is, a unity which is independent of all our 
thinking about it. 

Of course, to those whose aim is truth no merely sub- 
jective philosophic unity can be satisfying. Our desire is, 
therefore, to find not only a unity in Thought, but a cor- 
responding Eeality for the thought. 

The unity of Philosophy is called its Principle. Philo- 
sophy, therefore, should have One Principle, and every 
thought that becomes a part of Philosophy should be 
appropriated by means of the Principle ; and through the 
Principle given place and worth in the System. 

The reason why the name Principle has been adopted 
is this : — Principle means, literally, "beginning." In Philo- 
sophy it signifies that with which one begins to think ; 
that which makes the beginning ; — that which is the first. 
The Principle is not necessarily that which is consciously 
first, or that which is first in experience, but that which is 
first in reality ; in other words, the Principle is that which 
lies at the source. Aristotle said, " "What is common to all 
first principles is that they are the primary source from 
which anything is, or becomes, or is known/ ' The unity 
of Philosophy , therefore, is the unity both of the thought 



402 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



which gives all thinking systematic form, and of the object, 
or thing, of which thought is the representation. 

Now, whether or not there is any such Principle for Phil- 
osophy, and whether or not there is an adequate apprehen- 
sion by man of such Principle, is the question for which 
we shall attempt to find an answer. 

In order to reach the end here proposed, the inquiry 
naturally arises first, *' How shall we begin our search? " 

The beginning of the inquiry has been made in the 
lectures already given. To a certain degree our search has 
already been carried forward. 

The starting point lies in psychical analysis; and it 
proceeds from the indisputable certainties which are dis- 
closed in our consciousness of Self. It is not necessary to 
repeat what I have said in this connection. I shall assume 
that we have gone through with the subjective analysis 
which constitutes Psychology,— from a recognition of its 
fundamental data to a setting forth of the manifold parts, 
qualities, and relations of the psychical being. 

Let us therefore glance over the products of Self-reflec- 
tion, and see if there is any one thought among our 
thoughts which answers to the demands of the Philosophic 
Ideal. If we find such thought it will then be our special 
object to discover whether or not we are compelled by the 
inevitable laws by which we think at all, — by the laws 
whose conclusion we must accept if we accept anything, 
—to declare that this thought is authorized by a correspond- 
ing Eeality. 

Now, a retrospect over our intellectual possessions shows 
that all the thoughts we have, or can imagine possible for 
us, may be included under a few great generalizations. 

First, there is a multitude of perceptions and judgments 
which relate to what we call physical things ; for example, 
to matter and force, to their forms and their relations. 
All these thoughts we may class under one name ; — for 
our convenience, let us choose the term " Nature." Nature 
is a term which we 'may use to include the whole physical, 
material, dynamic domain which we think of in reference 



1887 



THE PRINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY 



403 



to the presentations made to us by means of the bodily 
senses. 

Next, we have myriad other thoughts than those which 
refer to Nature. As, for example, thoughts of intellectual, 
emotional, and purposing power and activity. All these 
thoughts we may class under another one name. It will be 
convenient for us to choose the term " Mind," or " Spirit." 
Mind is a term which we may use for the inclusion of the 
whole psychical domain which we think of in our ex- 
perience of that which we recognize as kindred to our own 
mental being and life. 

" Nature " and " Mind," then, let us elect as the names 
we may give to two superior Thoughts under which the 
whole content of our experience can be ranged. 

But do these two thoughts include the whole extent of 
our thinking ? No. We find ourselves in possession of 
yet another Thought in which both' Mind and Nature 
appear in co-existence, or in union. We have a thought 
of that which we may name the " Universe." This word 
means, literally, a turning into one. The thought of the 
Universe ice may use to signify the sum total of the 
thoughts of our experience. 

Now, do we find in either of these thoughts, 
Mind, or Nature, or in the culminating thought, the 
Universe, — which comes from the union of Nature and 
Mind, — the object we are seeking, that is, the Philosophic 
Principle ? 

Is, for example, the thought of Nature, that is, of the 
realm of physical force and substance, satisfying for this 
search ? We assume that Nature is infinite. But how 
is it infinite ? We call it infinite in space and time, in 
matter and force. But is it absolutely infinite ? If we 
cannot say that the infinity of Nature is absolute, it does 
not offer a perfect Unity ; and our search for the Philo- 
sophic Principle remains unsatisfied. The thought of 
Nature, as we are interpreting Nature, evidently does not 
involve an absolute infinity ; for we think of the realm of 
Mind as existing, as well as that of Nature. We learned 
in a previous lecture, that we cannot identify thought and 



401 



MID- LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PABT II 



matter, soul and body, spirit and force, Mind and Nature. 
They are two when w r e demand one. 

But if the thought of Nature does not answer the 
philosophic demand, neither, so must we also say, does our 
thought of Mind : Mind exists as well as Nature. The 
realm of Mind we can indeed think of as infinite in 
thought, emotion and purpose ; but, as with Nature, the 
infinity of Mind is of its own kind - each has a relative 
and conditioned infinity. 

If, then, neither of these superior Thoughts is satisfying 
to the philosophic need, what shall we say of the Thought 
of their union and co-existence, that is, as the Universe? 
The Universe compels the thought of infinity in space, 
in time, in force, in matter ; also in thought, in feeling and 
in will. 

But what, after all, is the content of the thought of the 
Universe ? Is it not the thought of a combination ? Is it 
not the thought of a co-existence ? Is not the Universe 
thought of as the sum total, the aggregate, the union of the 
myriad thoughts of our experience as they are generalized 
in Mind and Nature ? Certainly. We think of soul, or 
mind, and body in union in ourselves, and in other human 
beings. We think we discover myriad combinations of 
Mind and Nature in the animal world. We think of the 
whole perceivable realm of existence as manifesting co- 
existences and unions of both Nature and Mind. 

In the presence of these facts, the inquiring intellect is 
inevitably compelled to ask for the source, for the cause 
of these combinations and co-existences. By a necessity 
laid upon our thinking we are compelled, when we meet 
with evident dependences and relations to ask ; upon 
what do they depend ? what is the source of their relations ? 
why are they as they are ? We cannot, if we think at 
all, avoid the force of the impulse which, in the presence 
of evident effects, demands knowledge of their sources and 
causes. 

Now, when we insist upon this inquiry it appears 
that in the thought of Nature, for itself considered, 
we cannot fine the source, or the cause of its union 
with Mind. Likewise, we must say that in Mind, as we 



1387 MIND AND NATURE! THE UNIVERSE 405 



think of Mind, we do not see the ground or cause of its 
union with Nature. Each thought presents, itself as unlike, 
and not dependent upon, the other ; while the very notion 
of a source is of that of which, and in which, another is. 
Every stream, for example, is of its source, and is dependent 
upon its source. Besides, the notion of cause is of that 
which determines. A cause is a source so far as it deter- 
mines that which issues from it. Effects are dependent 
upon their causes. Now it has never been demonstrated, 
— and I am confident it is not true, — that either Mind or 
Nature * is the source and cause of the other, or of the 
various forms of their union. 

The necessities of the notion of source and cause, con- 
sequently, compel us to seek a Thought superior to those 
of both Mind and Nature ; to rise if possible to a Thought 
in which the Universe itself is contained, and through 
which its parts and their unions, or combinations, are 
determined. 

The thought of really Infinite and Absolute Being ; of 
One Being in which, or in Whom, and of Whom the whole 
Universe exists, here appears. 

Apprehending this Thought, what relation, we must ask, 
does the notion of source or cause bear to it ? If we can 
discover that this Thought is in any way limited ; then, we 
must answer, it, too, comes within the relation of effect 
and cause, and is thereby inadequate for our needs. But 
if this Thought is really of Being with which in no respect 
whatever can external limits be associated ; which has no 
external relations in any sense of the word ; which is 
wholly of Itself, and which has, or is, perfect Unity ; then, 
we must answer that, by its very quality it is lifted above 
all inquiry after a cause for it. 

Have we any such Thought ? Can we reasonably assert 
for our thinking that there is Being which is Infinite and 
Absolute ; Being outside which there is Nothing ; which is 
of itself the one Source and Cause of all ; which is, conse- 
quently, source and cause of Nature, of Mind, and of 
their co-existence, or union, as the Universe ? 

Beyond doubt, you and I have this Thought. Oxxc 
whole present discussion is directed by this Thought. If 



406 



MIP-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



we have it not words mean nothing, and our entire intel- 
lectual activity is without reliability. I am not saying, of 
course, that our Thought is accompanied by Keality, but I 
do say that the Thought exists. 

Moreover, when we turn from our speculations to the 
thinking of vast numbers of the present Mankind we find 
that we are not alone in our conclusion. In common 
language there is a word which, to myriads, stands essen- 
tially for that of which I have been speaking. The word 
is "God." This word is a word special to Eeligion, and it 
has been often associated, and is still associated, by multi- 
tudes, with thoughts less inclusive than that which I say 
we have apprehended. But the word has also come to 
represent, for the thinking of the most matured portions of 
Mankind, the thought of Infinite and Absolute Being ; — 
the Source and Cause of the Universe. 

Before we make a particular study of this Thought, how- 
ever, let us examine with some care the meaning of the 
words, " Infinite" and " Absolute." Let us try to see clearly 
just what their contents are. Thereby, I hope, we shall be 
enabled the better to make the continuation of our discus- 
sion effective. 

Consider to this end our notion of Nature. We ascribe 
infinity to Nature. 

If, for example, we were to stand under a starry sky, 
and there try to fix in thought the bounds of the azure 
depths that arch over us, undoubtedly we should fail. To 
the bodily eyes the limits of the heavens would seem fixed 
in a comparatively near distance. But physical vision 
would not measure Nature's extent for us, so far as our 
thought would be concerned with it. Even a child would 
say, " I see the blue up there, but I wonder what is 
beyond it." We might turn upon the heavens a telescope 
and find a multitude of glittering galaxies disclosed to our 
sight. But even this revelation would not satisfy. 
Actuated by an inevitable impulse, our thought would 
pass beyond all range of vision, and w T e should, in thought, 
be sure that we were in the midst of unfathomable depth ; 
that there was everywhere measureless height, breadth 
and length. Less than a thought of boundlessness in 



1887 



infinity: in space and in duration 407 



distance would not meet our demand. But that thought 
would. Always beyond what eye can see, or mind can 
imagine, man's mental flight speeds, with never a hope of 
reaching at last the celestial boundaries. Indeed, if it 
could be shown that at some limit, matter and force were 
no longer present, the mind would yet be driven onward 
by the conviction that there is still capacity for extension, 
infinitely beyond the reach of the uttermost measured 
space. The consciousness of Infinity in Space is inevita- 
bly aroused and fixed by a persistent effort to pass the 
material and dynamic limits. 

Again, were we to turn our thought upon the changing 
moments, hours, days and years, and try to discover the 
length of Time, we should unquestionably fail. Could we 
think of this morning and the present instant, and believe 
that, in the first, time began, and that now it has ended ? 
No. Already you and I have passed through years. The 
days of our infancy, it may be, are now so far away that 
we grow weary in trying to recount all that we have seen, 
known, felt and done. But, even w r ere it possible for us 
to measure the times through which we have lived, could 
we then say that Time itself is included in your and my 
personal experience of it ? Not at all. Every one knows 
that his own life on earth is but as that of an ephemera 
compared with the life of Humanity. And he knows, too, 
that time, even for Humanity, is but as a breath compared 
with the immeasurable ages of the earth and the stars. 
But when we think of Time itself, thought, driven by an 
unavoidable impulse, declares that backward forever there 
can be no •limit beyond which there is no possible 
beginning ; and that forward there is no possible final 
ending, just as there can have been no ultimate beginning. 
Less than this assertion of the limitless possibility of 
Duration would not satisfy ; but that would. Each of us 
can measure time so far as himself is concerned by his own 
moments and years. But, in any attempt to think of 
Time alone, we are irresistibly led to affirm Duration in 
which our own experiences are as nothing ; in which, the 
remotest deed recorded in history is as of yesterday ; in 
which, even the millions of ages through which our planet 



408 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PART II 



has been passing are but as an event ; indeed, in which, 
the present processes of development, to which our whole 
solar and stellar universe is subjected, is but as a moment. 
The consciousness of Infinity in Duration is but the con- 
sequence of a persisting effort to measure Time. 

In our notion of Nature, therefore, we are led by 
reflection upon its possibilities of extent and duration, to a 
conviction of illimitability, of boundlessness, of infinity. 

Now we meet a decisive question. Just what is the 
content of the thought, Infinity ? Does it refer to 
anything positive ? Has it any other content than that of 
negation and contrast? The answer to these questions is 
fraught with important consequences. 

Is Infinity a positive thought ? Some thinkers have held 
that it is nothing more than a negative notion accompany- 
ing an enlarging finite experience ; that, consequently, it 
has no worth in itself, and, of course, no real bearing upon 
the deepest problems of existence. But I have been led 
to believe that such conclusion is not warranted by 
the profoundest and most comprehensive speculation. 
Examine the word, — " infinite." It is certainly negative in 
form, — in-finite. But, notice further, it is a double negative. 
The word finite is itself a negation ; it signifies exclusion of 
that which lies beyond finiteness. The thought " finite " 
comes from oar drawing a limit hetivecn an antecedent 
consciousness of the unlimited and itself. When I learn 
to say " infinite," I only consciously negative the negation 
already involved in the word " finite." It is logically com- 
pulsory upon thought when I think of a being, or of definite 
being, to assume, as already present to me, the positive con- 
sciousness of undetermined being. The like is true when 
I think of a finite thing. For example, we say Space is 
infinite, that is, that Space has no external limit In order to 
illustrate this thought, consider a sphere. A sphere is space ; . 
it is space by having length, breadth and depth in every 
direction. But it is circumscribed space ; space limited by 
a uniformly curved surface. Think away this limitation. 
Does this removal of limit give a consciousness of Space 
itself? Not at all. I have already had the indefinite 
consciousness of Space, in w T hich a sphere is circumscribed. 



1887 IS THE IDEA OF THE INFINITE, POSITIVE ? 409 



If this spatial limitation is removed, the only result is that 
Space in its pure infinity, or undeterminateness, remains. 
That which is real, essential, infinite for Space, then, is our 
affirmative and positive, though undefined, original Space 
consciousness. 

The apparent negative quality of .the thought Infinite, 
then, lies wholly in the double negative word which stands 
for the thought. And this word has come into existence 
only because of the development of the human mind in the 
midst of its growing experience with the finite things of its 
environment. 

The wholeness of Space, by which Space is all space ; 
outside which there is no space, or capacity for extension ; 
this is the thought which is fundamental to our conscious- 
ness of Infinity for Space. The negative thought and 
word are thus dependent upon the existence of the positive 
Idea. Were not the mind originally in possession of this 
idea, no word ; no thinking away of limits ; no enlarging 
of experience, even if carried through myriad generations, 
could ever bring the thought of Infinity into existence. 

The thought of Infinity, then, however we may apply 
it ; however closely associated with experience ; does not 
at all originate through, or by means of, experience. It 
perpetually refers to that which lies beyond experience ; 
and it always carries its movement beyond the farthest 
reach of experience. Let the astronomer's eye see never 
so far, the astronomer's mind is still conscious of existence 
beyond that ; let the geologist's calculation measure time 
never so remote, the mind of the geologist is still conscious 
of a possible beginning beyond that. 

The thought of Infinity, therefore, is the issue of a 
positive idea. Its existence in consciousness is no more 
dependent upon intellectual development, than the existence 
of Self is dependent upon the development of consciousness 
into Self-Consciousness. 

By a process of reasoning similar to that we have just 
made, the meaning and quality of the word Uncondition- 
ed, or Absolute, also becomes clear. That which is condi- 
tioned is in some measure determined by another. For 
example, your or my life is co-determined by the lives of 



410 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PART II 



our fellow beings. Our earth is, to a measure, determined 
by other planets and by the sun. If we search throughout 
our experience we shall find all things and events there 
related to one another ; affecting, determining, conditioning 
one another, and being themselves, in turn, conditioned. 
Nowhere in the universe, so far as is known by human exper- 
ience, is there a being which is not in relation to some being 
external to it, and not to a greater or less degree condition- 
ed. * A being to be unconditioned and absolute must exist 
in, and for, itself; must have no relation whatever to any 
being outside of self ; must be over all ; beyond all ; includ- 
ing all ; itself conditioning all but not itself conditioned by 
another. 

Have we the thought of such Being ? We certainly 
have. Our present discussion, as I have said, is self- 
evident testimony to the existence of this Thought. Not- 
withstanding all our experience which, no matter how 
enlarged it may become, is in every way confined and 
limited to what is relative, dependent, conditioned, we 
yet possess the positive idea of the Absolute. Indeed, it is 
true of this Idea as it is true of the idea of the Infinite, that 
it must, in essence, be existent in us, prior to any of the 
negations of it which appear in our intellectual develop- 
ment. This Idea is above, and beyond, and before all 
experience, in fact, although it may come into recognition 
and expression in the course of the maturing psychical 
life. 

We have discovered then, what is really meant when 
we use the words Infinite and Absolute. By these terms 
toe express in negative form positive ideas. In referring 
them to the ultimate thought of One Being, we therefore, 
think of the One Being as in every respect not only all but 
more than all ; as Self-dependant ; as the One in which the 
Universe is contained ; through which, in every part and 
relation, the Universe is caused, subordinated and con- 
ditioned. 

Eemembering these speculations we are prepared to 
resume discussion of our ultimate Idea ; that of Infinite 
and Absolute Being. 

I said that the necessities involved in our following the 



1SS7 THE GOD-IDEA : BEYOND DEMONSTRATION 411 



notion of Source and Cause, in our search for the ground of 
the union or co-existence of Mind and Nature, compel us 
to rise to the thought of Being which is superior to both 
Mind and Nature ; that is to apprehension of the Infinite 
which is Absolute. I said, further, that such Thought we 
already have ; and that among the most advanced portions 
of Mankind the word used for that thought is " God." 

In the thought of " God, therefore, as the Source and 
Cause of the Universe, in all its parts, qualities, and rela- 
tions, w 7 e find the Philosophic demand for ultimate Unity 
fully met. 

But do not misunderstand the claim I have now made. 
I am confident that the inevitable result when man thinks 
under the conditions of the law of Causality is, that there is 
Being w r hich is infinite and absolute Source and Cause. 1 
do not claim nor do I believe, however, that ice secure, by 
this intellectual process, what ice may name a " demon- 
stration of the God idea ' 1 

Because of its quality, I hold that that Idea can not be 
proven, or demonstrated. Causality in a definite relation 
between two beings, or things, whereby one being is of, 
and in, another, and whereby that which is caused is what 
it is by means of the cause. The thought of "God," how- 
ever, is of Being of whom, and in w 7 hom, are all things, 
As infinite and absolute, therefore, God himself must be 
the universal and the only ultimate Source and Cause. 
The very thought of Causality, consequently, is, itself, 
grounded by means of the thought of " God," and not the 
contrary. We can not demonstrate the God-idea by 
arguing from effect to cause. But, in arguing from effect 
to cause, it is the fact that the God-idea is somew T here dis- 
closed to us. Yet w r e should always remember that it is 
disclosed as above and beyond all our demonstrative pro- 
cesses ; and it must be accepted as itself the source and 
warrant for all demonstration. There is an essential 
fallacy in every attempted demonstration of that whichj 
like tbe God-idea, forever lies above and must precede all 
demonstration. 

Man can devise no proof for the God-idea. Its quality 
precludes demonstration. 



412 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



There are certain objections which, it may be said, stand 
between us and our assumption that at last, in our reason- 
ing upon the Universe, we must immediately merge thought 
into a consciousness of the Infinite and Absolute, and 
accept that assumption as final for our reasoning. 

It may be supposed, for instance, that there are other 
and yet higher forms of existence than those which we 
have generalized under the notions of Mind and Nature, 
and their union as the Universe. With such possibilities 
fronting us, it may be asked, " Can we then accept and 
rest in the thought of God as a finality ? Why not ? 
The thought of Infinite and Absolute Being, rightly 
assumed, of necessity forever transcends all other possible 
thoughts, be they of the Universe of Nature and Mind, or 
of yet higher forms of being. The true content of the 
Thought of God is simply " Being ; " Being, to which 
every possible form of being must be inferior, and in which 
all kinds of being must be included. 

Again it may be said, "Can we not think of Being 
which is in such manner the Source of all things, that they 
shall be external to it and it external to them? " Such 
thought, however, would violate that which is really 
essential to the notion of Source and Cause. A product 
cannot be essentially separate from its source, or from the 
sum total of its sources ; moreover the very idea of Absolute 
Infinity excludes any possible existence as external to it. 
The necessity involved in our thought is clearly apparent 
in such phrase as the Apostle Paul's declaration, " The 
God and Father of all ; in whom, by whom, of whom, 
and to whom are all things." 

Again it may be asked, "Can we not think of some 
form of being which is not under the relation of effect 
and dependence, with Infinite and Absolute Being ? " If 
such thought were possible our thought of the Infinite and 
Absolute would thereby disappear. There could not be, in 
thought, two or more unconditioned Infinites. 

Well, then, finally it may be asked, " Is it not possible 
that there may be many minds who do not have the 
thought of Infinite and Absolute Being ? " Yes, this is 
possible. But it is possible for those only who have never 



1S87 THE GOD-IDEA : OVER ALL TRANSCENDENT 113 



been compelled to ask steadily backward, guided by the 
intuition of Causality, for the Source and Cause of themselves 
and the World. The non-existence of the Thought in one 
mind is no proof of its non-existence in other minds ; and 
present ignorance of it is no evidence that even to him 
who is ignorant it-will not become known, when his mind 
has been brought under proper conditions for such 
knowlege. 

Acknowledging now, that the human mind has,— that 
you and I — have apprehended, the thought of Infinite and 
Absolute Being, and that the mind must rest there as at 
the goal beyond which man's intellect cannot move, we 
are confronted by the profound and vitally momentous 
question, " Is there any Reality corresponding to the 
Thought? 

As a thought, w T e possess that which in every way, 
may be regarded as the Principle of Philosophy ; but we 
need more, Is the Thought true ? Is it drawn from real 
Being? Let us consider what, I am confident, our 
reasoning processes compel us to accept. 

I have the Thought, and you have it. None of us, 1 
assume, even dreams that himself is its object. It is the 
thought of One who infinitely transcends you or me. 
This being the fact, " How can I be its Source or 
Cause ?" The thought is not that which is I, or is of me, or is 
of that which is subordinated to me. The thought carries 
consciousness beyond my Self. It transcends not only my 
Self -Consciousness, but also my consciousness of all finite 
beings. In truth, I must say that I cannot think of 
myself as the source, or the cause, of the thought of any- 
thing that is external to me. I know that I can do much 
in bringing the thought into clearer consciousness, when 
once J have it ; but I am sure that cognition of any object 
as outside of me depends upon a prior presentation in my 
consciousness from without. 

This thought of Infinite and Unconditioned Being, — 
because of the conditions which the notion of Causality im- 
poses upon it, I hold, therefore, can be apprehended, only 
as having been itself first caused in and through its Object. 
Since the content of the thought is "God" I hold that the 



414 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



Source of the thought cannot be any finite being or thing. 
Could the cause be a finite being, the effect would "transcend 
the cause ; a result which is unthinkable. The laws of 
thought demand the inferiority, always, of effect to cause. 

But it is sometimes said the thought of God belongs to 
man through education and tradition. Well, even 
though it be true that the God-idea has been given to us 
by our educators, " Whence, " we must ask, " did it come 
to our educators ?" And if they received it as " revelation " 
from God, our search is met. Moreover, how could they 
ever have accepted it and appropriated it if the Thought 
were not essentially in harmony with their nature and 
their power of apprehension. 

It is my conviction that, whether it came to the men 
of the past, or to us of to-day, " the God-idea " as I have 
described it, is necessarily a gift from " God " himself. The 
thought of the Infinite and Absolute could not be reached 
or apprehended by the human mind unless the thought 
were first disclosed to the mind by Him who is himself 
Infinite and Unconditioned. God is his own witness. To 
Him we must ascribe whatever consciousness of Him we 
have. This utterance of the Eeason has, therefore, at the last 
its justification as "Bevelation." From Divine "inspiration," 
therefore — so I believe, — springs the impulse which leads 
the mind to philosophic research, and gives to the Philo- 
sophic Ideal permanence and authority. 

But Kant said, in reference to the argument which posits 
the objective, or real existence of Infinite and Absolute 
Being because the idea is found present in finite thinking, 
"Though I think God, I have just as little certainty that 
God exists, as when I think of a mountain of gold, I am 
possessed of gold.'' 

Observe, however, that there is a radical difference 
between these two thoughts. There is a difference of 
essential quality ; a difference which the Konigsberg phil- 
osopher seems not to have considered. We are not, ascrib- 
ing such "existence" to "God" as that which we associate 
with finite things. We are compelled to make a critical 
inquiry into the hind of existence which is possessed by all 
finite objects of finite thought. Their existence may be 



1887 THE " IDEA " AND THE " EXISTENCE " OF GOD 415 

confined wholly to the fantasy ; for them there may be no 
external counterparts. My thought of "a mountain of 
gold" is, of course, no guarantee that such mountain exists 
among the earth's mountains. But the question of objec- 
tive existence for the thought of "God" may not be subjected 
to any such criticism. All modes of "existence" are neces- 
sarily thought of as subordinated to the thought of " God." 
The realm of the imagination or fantasy, therefore, as well 
as that of the external senses is subordinated to this all 
inclusive Thought. He who inquires after the objective 
validity of the thought of Infinite and Absolute Being is 
himself, w r ith his question, thought of as included within 
such Being. When we inquire into the existence of 
" God," our question involves nothing relative. We speak 
of Absolute Existence. And Absolute Being cannot be 
thought of without our involving in the thought the 
Absolute Existence of such Being. If God is appre- 
hended as All Being, he is thereby apprehended as having 
"existence." The notion of " existence " is as inseparable 
from that of absolutely Infinite Being, as the notion of limit- 
ation is inseparable from that of finite being, God is, 
literally, to use the words of Spinoza, the " One whose 
Essence encloses Existence." A finite being can exist in 
various modes ; it can exist either in thought or in reality, 
for the reason that it has only limited existence. Objective 
existence is only a possibility for it. But Infinite Being 
which is the One only, can exist in but one mode ; existence 
for such Being is a necessity. 

Ho who doubts the " existence " of " God," as we have 
thought of God shows by his doubt he has not yet appre- 
hended the true content of that which is expressed by the 
word. " God " is not this, or that being ; " God " is Being. 
God has not this, or that kind of reality ; God is Eeality 
itself. God is not a part of things ; God is the Whole. If 
then I have a thought of the Absolute Whole I have, 
within that thought, necessarily, the thought of existence. 

We have not the time, indeed we have not the need, 
to carry this reasoning farther. From what has been 
said, it should be evident that the very content of our 
thought of Infinite and Absolute Being is evidence that 



416 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PAKT II 



the thought is lifted above the range of demonstration, 
and that it must be, and is, its own evidence. The thought 
is self-evident to those who truly apprehend the meaning 
which lies back of the words. 

I sum up our argument as follows :— Man's thinking is 
governed by the law that every effect must have for itself 
a sufficient cause. The inevitable ultimate disclosure in a 
steady search after the Cause of the things and events of 
the World is consciousness of Infinite and Absolute Being. 
From no part of, nor from all our own experience, nor 
from the experience of Mankind, finite as it must be, can 
our transcendent Thought have come. The only answer we 
can make, when we ask for its origin, is that our thoughts 
cannot rise higher than their source ; that our Thought of 
God can have no less an origin than the Infinite, Absolute 
One ; that our consciousness of God must come from God 
himself, — the Perfect Reality. The very fact that Man 
thinks God is, if we trust our mental laws for anything, 
evidence of the Real worth of the Thought. Beyond this fact 
reasoning fails. Intuition must enable the mind to see, if it 
shall at all see, the offered truth. There is no proof for it 
any more than there is proof for Self-Consciousness. The 
most that we can say is, that, when the proper condi- 
tions are present, as with the uprising of the sun upon 
the world, so with the awaking of the consciousness of 
God in the mind ; — darkness disappears, and sight is 
filled with light seen to be flowing from the One sublime 
Source, making all things clear in its brightness. 

In possession now of the one transcendent Thought to 
which veritable Reality corresponds, our main purpose has 
been accomplished. 

The ultimate Philosophic Idea appears, therefore, as a 
Divine " gift." With profoundest reverence I say it ; — The 
God-Idea is God's inspiration in the intellectual life, leading 
the mind toward the perfect Truth. The Philosophic Ideal, 
therefore, is a mental product justified by its being the 
mind's intuition of the Divine Reality ; and human Science 
is a growing, definite representation to the human intellect 
of the real, systematic order of the Universe, — from 
molecules to stellar systems, and from the faintest stir 



1887 RELATION OF THE UNIVERSE TO GOD 417 



of life to the sublimest thought and emotion of the spirit of 
man. 

A few words more before leaving our subject upon 
some momentous practical consequences of the Thought 
which we have seen substantiatied. 

From what w 7 e have learned, you may ask, " What is 
the evident relation of the Universe to God ? " No other 
answer can be given, from the position to which we have 
been led, than that the Universe exists in God, under God, 
and by means of God. The Universe is related to Divine 
Being as caused by Him, contained in Him, and sub- 
ordinated to Him. It is referred to God as effect to Cause ; 
as part to Whole ; as creature to Creator. 

But the Universe is not to be thought of as spatially in 
God, like the area in a circle. Bather it is to be thought of 
as existent within the Divine Essence, or Substance, which 
itself transcends, and yet pervades, infinite Space, infinite 
Time, infinite Force ; infinite Matter, Mind, Emotion and 
Will as we know them. God, as we have thought of Him, 
must be omnipresent over, and in, Nature and Mind ; above 
all, in all, through all, — Source, Creator, Cause, Power, Life, 
Thought, Soul, Spirit, — forever over and in all that is. 

Turning to the history of Beligion, especially of the 
Christian religion, we find that this interpretation of the 
God-idea has long been the goal towards which theological 
speculation has been making a continuously closer ap- 
proach ; and that in the minds of chosen prophets it has 
been the end gained. 

The greatest of the Apostles spoke always, w T hen his 
theme was " God ; " — of the " God and Father of all, of 
whom, by whom, in whom, to whom, and for w T hom are 
all things." " In him we live, and move, and have our 
being," said Paul to " the men of Athens." To Paul's 
thought, God worketh in all things, to will and to do of His 
own good pleasure. To Paul, all creatures, all parts of 
both Nature and Mind, exist because God is. 

In the writings of the Church Fathers, we find frequent 
reproduction of this profound thought of the Apostle. 
Augustine, for example, wrote, "God is he above whom, 
outside whom, and without whom there is nothing. But 



418 



MID-LIFE MEMOEABILIA PART II 



under whom and in whom is all." Then, later along the 
Christian centuries, we meet with representative philoso- 
phers expressing their " thought of God " in like words. 

Anselmsaid, " God is the One of whose supreme essence, 
and through which, and in which are all things." 

Still later history shows only an increasing clearness of 
this vision among the Christian thinkers. Archbishop Fene- 
lon, for example, interpreted the thought of God in these 
words : " I think a Being who is sovereignly One and su- 
premely All. He cannot be limited to any mode of being. All 
that one adds to the word Being diminishes its meaning. 
God is Being. Being is his name, essential, glorious, in- 
communicable. All kinds of being are in Him as in their 
Source. All that exists, of truth or goodness in every 
possible existence, flows from him." 

Malebranche, philosopher-priest, wrote, " One ought 
not to call God spirit, in order to show positively 
what He is, but to signify that He is not material. 
He is the Being infinitely perfect ; but as we ought not 
to imagine with anthropomorphists that he has the 
human form, so neither ought we to think that the spirit 
of God has human thoughts, or that his spirit is like 
our spirit. It is better to think that he includes within 
himself the perfections of Matter without being material ; 
and includes also the perfections of created Spirit without 
being himself spirit, in the same manner that we conceive 
spirit. His true name is * He who is/ To Moses, Jehovah 
revealed himself as ' I am that is to say, Being 
without restriction, all Being, infinite, universal. The 
divine Substance is everywhere, not only in the Universe 
but beyond it. God is not enclosed in his work, but his 
work subsists in him. God is not all, nor is all God, but 
God is over and through all, and all is under and in 
God." 

But I need not multiply like quotations. All along 
Christian history are evidences that the vision of the chief 
Apostle was more and more distinctly open to many 
thinkers of the Church, and that, in recent times, it has 
been an increasing and a clarifying inspiration for the 
maturing of Christian thought. With their final attain- 



1886-88 TWO STUDY-CLASS LECTURES 419 



ment, therefore, both Philosophy and Religion utter a 
common voice. And why should they not? Both, by 
different ways, have aspired toward the same End, and both 
have been impelled from a common Source. 

Let it suffice for us to know that we have now reached 
the supreme height possible to the human mind; and that 
here we may abide, certain of our sublime Consciousness, 
and of the Reality of the perfect One who has informed it. 

The Principle of Philosophy is therefore disclosed. It 
appears both as Thought and as Real Being. It is God, 
infinite and absolute : — not God as a Being, co-existing with 
another Infinite and Absolute One ; nor as Being who is 
identified with the Universe ; but as Being who is, alone, 
the only true One ; the perfect Source and Cause of all ; 
Creator, Disposer, Motive and End of all. 

Apprehending this consummate Certainty, let us returnto 
our studies ; sure that, in our slowly developing knowledge, 
we are but learning to think God's thoughts after Him; 
that our Science, from stones and beasts of the fields to the 
intuitions of the human soul, is but an ascending course 
of Divine Education ; and that our aspiration towards a 
perfect realization of the Philosophic Ideal is but our 
response to the presence of the Divine Spirit in our spirits, 
to lead us into all truth, and, through the truth, into the 
perfect life. 



e. Tico Study-Class Lectures. — Throughout that de- 
cade, — the Eighties, — so eventful for me in relation to 
affairs not directly connected with my profession as 
clergyman, I was still, in many ways, a student of 
matters connected with Religion. Among various papers 
which I prepared in those years are two rather important 
essays to which I will give place among these " Memo- 
rabilia " before w T e go farther. 

For a while, when I was in Saint Paul, I had the 
leadership of a Study-Class which gave a special reading to 
Dante's life and writings. As an introduction to our work, 



420 



MID-LIFE MEMOEABILIA ( PAET II 



I ventured upon a review of Dante's spiritual and intellectual 
significance for the Middle Ages, under the heading : — - 

I. 

Dante :— 

Medieval Theologian and Philosopher 

The year 1300, in which Dante placed his pilgrimage 
through the Infernal depths to the beatific Empyrean, we 
now see, marks the time when what are called the Middle 
Ages reached their culmination in power and expression. 
This was the great " Year of Jubilee " appointed by Pope 
Boniface VIII. It celebrated the sovereignty over Western 
Europe of the Eoman Papacy ; a sovereignty at which, for 
two hundred and fifty years, the Church had avowedly 
aimed, and towards which it had been moving for at least 
eight hundred years. 

With the downfall of the Eoman Empire in the Fifth 
Century, organized Christianity rapidly rose to possession 
of the vacated throne. The barbaric conquerors of the Im- 
perial State gave way before the stupendous mysteries of the 
Church. During the " Dark Ages " which overshadowed 
Europe from 450 to 750 the Church of Eome alone had the 
knowledge and incentive necessary to guide the helpless 
nations. It was at about this time that Saints Martin, 
Salvian, Severinus, Sequanus, Gallus, Patrick, Columba, 
and others, — the hero missionaries to whom the northern 
and western peoples gradually submitted themselves under 
the name of Christ, — were sent forth. A little later, in 
590, the great Gregory lived ; under whose zeal the Church 
of Eome became yet more the benefactor of the barbarians, 
and, thereby, more and more an object of reverence and 
loyal service among the peoples of the far north and west 
of Europe. 

The " Dark Ages " for Christian Europe came to a close 
near the middle of the Eighth Century, 732, with the check 
given at Tours, to the advance of the Mohammedans from 
Spain, by the Frankish chief, Charles Martel ; but during 
these ages the power of the Eoman Church had become so 
firmly established that in 741, Zacharias I. took the Papal 



1S86 



BISE OF " THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE " 



421 



chair without seeking ratification for his act from the 
authorities of the State. In the political chaos of the 
"Dark Ages," by a practical necessity, the Church, which 
was enabled to command obedience in the name of its mys- 
■ terious functions, had become almost independent of civil 
interference. 

Naturally, the next step in the Ecclesiastical advance- 
ment was taken. In 755, the Pope, in the person of 
Stephen III., became for the first time a temporal sove- 
reign. Pepin, king of the Franks and conqueror of North 
Italy, as the professed ally of the Pope, gave to the Church 
a large part of that land. The next Papal aggrandize- 
ment came from Pepin's son, Charles. Pope Adrian I. 
was made by him virtual ruler of all Italy. Then, under 
the great Charles, who had become, practically, conqueror 
of Western Europe, an attempt was made to restore the 
Empire which had, seemingly, been destroyed four hun- 
dred years before. But note this fact ; — the restored 
Empire was to be the confessed ally of the Church. 
Henceforth, the civil power was to be holy. Charle- 
magne was, therefore, crowned "Emperor of the 
Romans," and became the head of what was thenceforth 
known as " The Holy Roman Empire." His coronation 
took place on Christmas, in the year 800, at St. Peter's 
Church in Rome, and by the Pope, Leo III. Thereafter 
the power and glory of the Church rapidly increased. 

We notice here a memorable device brought for- 
ward in the interests of the growing Ecciesiasticism. 
The great forgeries called "Decretals," pretended 
letters and decrees of the early bishops and councils of 
Rome, " asserting the supreme jurisdiction of the Church, 
and of the Pope as the head of the Church, over all secular 
authority," appeared from Gregory IV. towards the 
middle of this Ninth Century, 837. These documents had 
a decided effect in advancing the assumptions of the 
Papacy. They were, thereafter, through the Middle Ages 
appealed to in behalf of the Papal power, and until the 
Fifteenth Century, when their falsehood was exposed, they 
were added to from time to time as occasion called forth new 
pretensions for the Pope's authority. Dante wrote that, in 



422 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



his own time, such was the honor in which these documents 
were held that, — 

The Evangel and the mighty doctors 
Are derelict, and only the Decretals 
So studied that it shows upon their margins. 
On this are Popes and Cardinals intent ; 
Their meditations reach not Nazareth." 

The Holy Koman Empire, however, did not succeed in 
establishing civil order in Christian Europe. That failure 
was the opportunity of the Papacy. And so well was the 
opportunity used that, towards the end of the Ninth 
Century, Western Christendom was actually subjected to 
what we may call a Theocracy incorporated in the Church. 
Morever, it was to the further interests of the Church that 
the now subordinated Empire should become merely a 
name. 

Then, such w 7 as the drift of events that, from this period 
or the beginning of the Tenth Century, we may date 
Feudalism, that is, the breaking up of extended civil govern- 
ment into many pretty domains. Hereby the unification 
of the powers of the Church was greatly increased. But 
with this development of power, also came the fearful 
corruption which had usurped the old religious purpose. 
The Roman Church had become practically supreme, but, at 
the same time, miserably degraded. The glory of the age of 
Gregory, the mission Pope, had been unspeakably debased. 

Because of this misfortune a slight period of reaction in 
favor of civil power occurred in the middle of the Tenth 
Century. The German emperors, the Ottos, came into 
Italy, and held Italy and the Papacy in control. They 
were the protectors, for the time, of morality and of civil 
order. Otto was crowned Emperor in 962, and took 
the title, " Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire." This 
check upon the pretensions of the Church continued 
until the time of Hildebrand, in the middle of the Eleventh 
Century. Hildebrand, who became Gregory VII., was a 
man of tremendous will and zeal. He proved himself an 
effective champion of the claims of the Church to indepen- 
dence and authority. Under him, what is now known as 
" the great age of the Papacy " was initiated. 



1886 



A GLANCE AT THE MIDDLE AGES 



423 



For the next two hundred and fifty years the Papal 
power rose rapidly towards absolutism. The Crusades 
were inaugurated and carried on during this time, and 
the Church, thereby, was given a grand opportunity to 
assert its authority. The Crusades subjected the civil 
powers of Western Europe to a religious fanaticism. And 
it happened that Innocent III. in 1200, became head of 
the Eastern as well as of the Western Church. In fact, 
this Pope became lord of all Christendom. He had the 
disposal of the Imperial and several royal crowns. Under 
his direction all the interests of Europe practically centered. 
At the end of the Thirteenth Century the ultimate height 
of ecclesiastical aggrandizement seems to have been reached, 
and the then reigning Pope, Boniface, in the year 1300 
as we have noted, summoned all Christendom to celebrate 
the final, absolute sovereignty of the Church, with a "Year 
of Jubilee." 

It is often the fact that excessive pride is but a sign that an 
ascending career is about to culminate; that, when all seems 
most secure, the structure is really toppling to its fall. So 
it happened, that within two years from this great "Year of 
Jubilee," Boniface was a prisoner of King Philip of France, 
and, as such, died. Within five years from the " Jubilee " 
a French Cardinal was Pope; the Papal seat was at 
Avignon ; and thenceforward for seventy years the proud 
Papacy was a dependency of the French crown. The 
permanent disintegration of the most stupendous hierarchy 
the word has ever known had begun ;— the Middle Ages 
had commenced to close. 

Looking backward from that time, we see a period of 
about one thousand years through which the Church of 
Rome had been persistently and successfully advancing to 
lordship over Christendom. And just as its Head had 
proclaimed possession of the crown, the decisive struggle to 
wrest absolutism from it commenced. In our day, in 
1870, we have seen the temporal sovereignty at least of 
the Church completely taken away. We may say, then, 
that with the Fourteenth Century, the Middle Ages were 
passed and the Modern Era entered. 



424 MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PART II 



I. 

WHAT IS THE MEDIEVAL THEOLOGY? 

Medieval Theology is the body of doctrine which the 
Roman Church developed, perfected, and made imperative 
oyer Western Europe during the period of which I have 
been speaking. Its foundation is the " Nicene Creed," 
adopted in the Fourth Century by what is known as the 
f 'First General Council of Christendom. 5 ' This creed was the 
outcome of the struggles through which the early Christian 
Church had passed in its spread from Jerusalem, with the 
going forth of the Apostles, to the acceptance of Christian- 
ity as the religion of the Roman Empire under the 
Emperor Constantine. The first three centuries of the 
Christian era were an age of intense spiritual and intel- 
lectual activity. The growing faith developed while in 
intimate contact — antagonistic and sympathetic — with the 
various schools of thought prevalent in Asia Minor, Egypt, 
Greece, and Rome. 

When Christianity had become the professed religion of 
the Empire, the most complete expression of Christian 
faith was embodied in this, so-named, " Nicene Creed." 
Medieval Theology, therefore, or the theology which dates 
from the fall of the Empire in the Fifth Century, started 
with a confession then held to be, as far as it went, ab- 
solutely fixed as true. That Confession declared that God 
is One, yet is a Trinity, as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in 
the Unity ; that God, the Son, became man, and for man 
and for man's salvation suffered and rose from the dead, 
and will hereafter judge the living and the dead ; that 
there is One Catholic and Apostolic Church ; one baptism 
for the ransom of sins ; a resurrection of man from the 
dead, and life in the world to come. 

It was upon this fixed foundation, and from a great 
mass of loose material lying around at that time, that the 
Medieval Theology was slowly reared. But the structure 
did not take shape without the most trying struggles 
among implacably hostile parties within the newly author- 
ized State Church as to what should be wrought into it. 

The chief director in guiding the development of the 



1886 THE THEOLOGY OF THE MIDDLE AGES 425 



Middle Age Theology, at its beginnings, was Augustine, 
Bishop of Hippo in North Africa. 

The efforts which many scholars made during the earlier 
theological development to maintain belief in " the subordi- 
nation of the Son to the Father," and which also constituted 
the principal heresy in the century succeeding the Nicene 
Council, were gradually suppressed and silenced. In the 
place of this early conflict a momentous straggle arose in 
the Fifth Century over dogmas concerning "Human Nature 
and Destiny," and the "Problem of Evil." In this struggle 
Augustine was the leader ; and he practically established 
for the Western Church for all time the doctrine that man 
cannot by his natural powers take the steps necessary to 
his own salvation. Belief in the freedom of the human 
will was not explicitly denied then ; but it is to Augustine 
we trace the doctrine of "Predestination ;"of the "Eternal 
Decrees ;" of "Divine grace ;" — the awful theocratic fatalism 
which afterwards was given dominant force in Christian 
belief. 

After Augustine's time came the " Dark Ages," in which 
there was no apparent onward movement in Theology. 
The only noticeabie change during this period was in the 
steady strengthening of the power of the Church, and a 
gradual idealizing of the writings of the Church Fathers, 
giving them almost Divine worth. 

But with the reappearance of intellectual activity in the 
Church, which came under the sway of Charlemagne, the 
enormous change which had taken place during the passing 
of the " Dark Ages " became visible in the special doctrines 
which then occupied leading minds. The forged "Decretals" 
had been highly exalted in the esteem of Christendom, and 
were utilized much towards establishing the Church's 
authority on firm foundations ; while the leading theological 
controversy, which Christian thinkers then dared engage 
in, was concerning the question, " Whether or not the 
wine and bread of the Sacrament are the real blood and 
body of God, the Son, or the same body which was born 
of the Virgin Mary, died on the cross, rose from the grave, 
and sits at the right hand of God ?" At the same time, 
Augustine's doctrine of "Predestination" had become elabor- 



426 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PART II 



ated by some theologians into the dogma that each man, 
individually, is sentenced from eternity to Heaven or Hell. 

The first of these two doctrines finally prevailed in its 
affirmative form, and became orthodox. In 1079, it was 
definitely settled for Christendom, that the wine and bread 
are not only symbols in a sacrament, but are " the true 
body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ,'* which in fact 
are " touched and broken by the hands of priests, and 
bruised by the teeth of the faithful." 

With the near rise of the Eoman Church to supreme 
power, the accepted Catholic doctrines on all religious 
problems were put into shape. As the Twelfth Century 
closed, Peter Lombard's " Book of Sentences " was in 
existence ; a book acknowledged by the ecclesiastics and 
the institutions of education for the Church as comprising 
the truth necessary for the confession of all Christian 
believers. 

The Thirteenth Century was, evidently, an age of great 
theologians ; but no new article of faith was brought into 
prominence under their speculations. This was the period 
of the great " School men," or Christian Scholastics. They 
labored entirely in behalf of what had been accepted and 
decreed by the Church in the past. Albert the Great, 
Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventura, and Duns Scotus produced 
enormous folios, but only to demonstrate and to illuminate 
the teachings of those whom the Church had taken into 
favor in its ascent towards consummate power. 

The best authoritative summary now accessible to us, 
of Medieval Theology, as it was when completed, is em- 
bodied in the decrees of the Council of Trent. This 
Council met in the Sixteenth Century (1545-1563), specifi- 
cally to counteract the influence of the Protestant 
Reformation. Its confessions, however, are only a stead- 
fast reiteration of the faith which had reached full expression 
in the writings of the Thirteenth Century Schoolmen. 
The opening paragraph of the " Tridentine Decrees " is a 
repetition and reassertion of the Nicene Creed ; the creed 
with which the Middle Ages Theology started. Upon this 
confession follow dogmatic articles with interpretations, a 
hundred-fold larger than the fundamental creed ; the result 



1886 THE DOGMAS OF MEDIEVAL THEOLOGY 427 



of the eight hundred years of the theological growth of 
the " Church of the Empire " to its culmination as the 
" Empire Church.' ' 

In these Decrees it appears that Medieval Theology 
means, — further than the confessions embodied in the 
Nicene Creed, — that all the Apostolic and ecclesiastical 
traditions authorized by the Church are, in addition to the 
Scriptures, infallibly true and binding upon human faith ; 
that the Holy Scriptures are true, according to the sense 
in which the Holy Mother Church holds them ; and that 
they are never to be interpreted otherwise than according 
to the unanimous consent of the Fathers. 

A large bulk of the Decrees of the Tridentine Council is 
devoted to the doctrine concerning " Human Nature" and 
"the Work of Christ." It is explicitly taught in them, by 
an elaborate series of anathemas on disbelievers, that Man- 
kind are totally ruined by Adam's fall ; and that there is 
no salvation for any one upon whom the merits of Christ's 
work had not been bestowed, and who has not accepted 
them. 

Further, it is declared, there are seven Sacraments 
necessary to human salvation, though not all of them are 
necessary for every one. Baptism is the first of these, and 
is absolutely necessary for all mankind. Then there are 
Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, 
Holy Orders, and Matrimony. 

The center of Medieval Theology, however, is the 
doctrine taught in it concerning the Lord's Supper, that is, 
the " Eucharist." Concerning this sacrament, it is declared 
that " in the mass there is offered to God a true, proper, 
and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead ; and 
that in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist there is 
truly, really and substantially, the body and blood, together 
with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ ; and 
that a change is made of the whole essence of the bread 
into the body, and of the whole essence of the wine into 
the blood ; and that partaking of either bread or wine, the 
communicant receives Christ whole and entire." 

Among the seven Sacraments, Penance was of very 
great importance. Confession, Penance and Absolution 



428 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PART II 



are notable sequents and signs of the Ecclesiastical 
absolutism. 

Besides, in the Middle Ages, the doctrine of Purgatory 
became authoritative, accompanied by the teaching that 
" the souls in Purgatory detained are helped by the suf- 
frages of the faithful" Further, it was taught that " the 
saints reigning with Christ are to be honored and invoked, 
and that they offer up prayers to God for us.'' Also, that 
" the relics of the holy dead are to be held in veneration ;" 
and that "the images of Christ and of the Perpetual Virgin, 
the Mother of God, and also of other saints, are to be bad 
and retained and honored and revered." Still further, it is 
characteristic of Medieval Theology, and thus of the 
Ecclesiastical absolutism, that the "Power of Indulgence had 
been left to the Church by Christ, and that the use of this 
power is most wholesome to Christian people." 

The Tridentine Decrees close by acknowledging the 
" Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Eoman Church as the Mother 
and Mistress of all churches," and by an oath, swearing 
obedience to the Bishop of Borne as " successor of Saint 
Peter, Prince of the Apostles., and Vicar of Jesus Christ." 

This, in brief, is what we know as "Medieval Theology," 
or the body of doctrine developed, perfected, and made 
imperative over Western Europe during the centuries lying 
between the downfall of the Eoman Empire and the 
"Jubilee" of Boniface VIII., the date of Dante's 
memorable pilgrimage. 

II. 

SCHOLASTICISM. 

Now, let us see what that movement in thought, closely 
inwrought into the Middle Ages and called " Scholas- 
ticism," was. At its beginning, it was simply the intel- 
lectual activity of whatever scholars there were in "Western 
Europe in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries, without 
special reference to either Christianity, or to the Church. 
At its consummation, or at the time Dante wrote, it was 
the whole intellectual energy of Western Europe subjected, 
as a willing slave, to the Imperial Church of Borne. It 
will be helpful to us to glance at the transition of European 



18S6 



BISE OF SCHOLASTICISM 



429 



thought from its earliest freedom to its Ecclesiastical 
servitude in the Thirteenth Century. 

In the Sixth Century lived a man* who has been called 
" the last classical philosopher," Boethius, the Roman. He 
was a disciple of both the great philosophers of ancient 
Greece, — Plato and Aristotle ; holding with Plato his doc- 
trine of Ideas, and with Aristotle his system of Logic. 
Plato believed that all things in existence were created by 
"God," according to eternal patterns or mental images ; that 
is, after divine "Ideas." Aristotle taught that the forms under 
which our intellectual activity works are certain universal 
facts called £< Categories," and by mean of the processes 
named " Syllogisms." Boethius was not a Church theolo- 
gian. He was an independent, non-Christian philosopher. 
His works were about the only connection that the scholars 
of the Ninth and Tenth Centuries had with the intellectual 
methods and achievements of classical Greece. 

When the missionary zeal of the Roman Church was 
active in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries, schools of 
instruction were established among the barbarous peoples 
visited. The teachers of these schools were called scholars, 
or scholastici. Of course, these " Scholastics " in their rea- 
soning used the methods they had been taught. By an 
easy process they became " logicians." 

The first noticeable mention of the growing power of 
the "Scholastics" appears in the records of the early part of 
the Ninth Century, when Benedict of Aniane complained 
that the Scholastics of Ireland and Scotland were " falsify- 
ing the faith" through their syllogistic illusions. Note in 
passing, that, during the " Dark Ages," Ireland had been 
the center of whatever real intellectual life there was in 
Western Europe outside of Mohammedan Spain. 

From the Ninth Century the interest in formal logic, as 
the discoverer and illuminator of truth, spread with great 
rapidity through the monasteries and cathedral schools of 
England, France, Germany, and of other countries. This 
Scholastic thought centered around one great question : — 
" Whether, or not, what are called universal ideas 
are true? " Is it true, it was asked, that when one says 
"tree" he refers to a universal idea of a tree, existing hide- 



430 



MID-LIFE MEMOBABILIA. PABT II 



pendently of all trees ; or that he simply uses a name 
suggested by myriad particular trees. Boethius had said, 
" If you weigh the truth of things, it is impossible to doubt 
that general ideas are true." It is a strange thing to us, 
but it is a historic fact, that towards the Tenth Century this 
question concerning "universal ideas" possessed the intel- 
lectual life of Western Europe, almost to the exclusion of all 
other problems. Poetry, history, natural science, and their 
like, were practically ignored because of the disputes of the 
Eealists and the Nominalists. The question, however, 
really underlies two almost wholly different views of the 
Universe, and thereby is of fundamental importance. 

The general doctrine of the early Medieval Church, so 
far as it touched this question at all, was in close connec- 
tion with the Boethian Platonic teaching, that there are 
" universal ideas/' existing really and independently of the 
separate things. Platonism, essentially, means this. 

There was, however, no special interest to the Church in 
this Scholastic excitement until scholars began to discuss 
seriously the special doctrines which were maturing under 
the growing Ecclesiasticism. Such discussion, at length 
came, and was given intense vigor at the close of the 
Eleventh Century. The critical debate came from a 
challenge made by a logician named Boscellinus 
(10 — ?-1121) to those who believed in the reality of 
universal ideas. The upholders of " the reality of 
universals " were called " Eealists ; " and they were the 
true representatives of the spirit gaining possession of the 
Church. Koscellinus ventured to oppose these Kealists. 
He did not, of course, dare to deny any Church doctrine ; 
but, as a Christian believer he so discussed, for instance, the 
doctrine of the Trinity, in opposition to the Eealists, that 
his teaching had to be condemned as heretical. 

We cannot now understand the intensity of the conflict 
which followed Eoscellin's venture. He was the first 
Scholastic to come into actual conflict with the Church ; the 
Church which was rapidly establishing itself as undisputed 
mistress of Western Europe. 

The great champion of the Church, and opponent 
of Eoscellin, was Anselm (1034-1109), afterwards arch- 



1886 FROM ANSELM TO ST. THOMAS AQUINAS 431 



bishop of Canterbury, England. It was with Anselm, we 
may say, that Scholasticism began to ally itself confessedly 
with the Church ; ultimately to become its servant, then 
slave. Anselm was a great thinker, but he announced, as 
a fundamental maxim for all intellectual activity, the con- 
fession, " I believe, in order that I ?nay understand " The 
Council of Soissons, in 1092, condemned Roscellin. In 
Eoscellin, the Isominalistic side of Scholasticism was also 
condemned ; and the Church accepted for its exponents the 
doctrine of the Scholastic Realists. Thenceforward, until 
after Dante's age, by " Scholasticism " we must understand 
Scholastic " Realism." 

Scholasticism, thus defined, became more and more 
identified with the Church ; and the Schoolmen devoted 
their energy to putting the Medieval Theology into logical 
shapes. Thenceforward the doctrine that Faith precedes 
and controls Reason rapidly became established. This 
dictum was the necessary accompaniment of the absolute 
and infallible Church. I read in a Papal Syllabus of even 
so recent a date as the year 1864, that those are " anathe- 
matized " who hold that " the methods and principles by 
which the old Scholastic doctors cultivated theology are no 
longer suitable to the demands of the age and the progress 
of science." 

When we speak of Scholasticism, therefore, we mean, not 
so much a system of Philosophy once existing, as-the use 
of the reasoning power when it is consecrated to upholding 
perpetually the creed of the Roman Catholic Church, as 
already fixed and made unchangeable in the Middle Ages. 

I wish I had time to tell of the further development of 
the Scholastic Philosophy from the time of Anselm to its 
culmination just before Dante's day*; and of the rebellion 
of the Reason in Europe which took place at the close of 
the Middle Ages ; but I must pass on to the remaining 
part of our theme. 

I will say, however, that the culminating glory of 
Scholasticism shone out in Albert the Great (1193-1254), 
and in St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), in the Thirteenth 
Century. Before this philosopher, and this saint the great 
intellect of Dante bowed. 



432 



MID-LIFE MEMOEABILIA PABT II 



And I may add the fact that about a score of years after 
Dante's death (1321), William of Occam, a great contem- 
porary, also died (1342). Historically this man was the 
leader of a Scholastic movement which was, really, a 
revival of Nominalism ; and with this revival the Ec- 
clesiastical Scholasticism rapidly became powerless as the 
dominating mover of European thought. 

in. 

DANTE AS RELATED TO MEDIEVAL THOUGHT. 

Now, what of Dante as Christian and philosopher ? 
Dante's great poem has been called "the Swan Song of the 
Middle Ages." It is certainly true that in Dante's thought 
there is a premonitory stir of the new spirit which was 
soon to animate Western Europe; yet the consummate ex- 
cellence of the " Divine Comedy " lies, after all, in the fact 
that it is the most complete literary expression the world 
has of the thought and life of that marvellous thousand 
years we call " The Middle Ages." The production of the 
poem and the culmination of the development of the 
Medieval epoch almost coincided. Consequently, Dante, as 
Christian and philosopher is to be regarded as distinctively 
the exponent of his times. 

Above all other thoughts, belief in God, and the 
prevalent dogma of Man's relation to God, possessed 
Dante. And to Dante, as to every faithful Christian of his 
day, the medium of God's communication with man 
was the Holy Church, whose head was the Roman 
Pope. 

What was Dante's belief in "God ?" In the "Paradiso" 

he wrote, — 

" There sang they neither Bacchus, nor Apollo, 
But, in the Divine Nature, Persons three, 
And in one Person the divine and human. 

This is but a poetic expression of faith in the " Trinity," 
and in the " Incarnation ; "—the fundamental articles of 
the Nicene Creed ? 

And Man, Dante believed, had been created perfect. 
Referring to Adam and Jesus, Dante wrote, — 



1886 



DANTE AND THE MEDIEVAL THEOLOGY 



433 



" If Love itself dispose, and mark 
The primal virtue, kindling with bright view, 
There all perfection is vouchsafed ; and such 
The clay was made, accomplished with each gift 
That life can teem with; such the burden filled 
The Virgin's bosom; so that I commend 
Thy judgment, that the human nature ne'er 
Was, or can be, such as in them was." 

But by the misuse of free-will, said Dante, Adam wil- 
fully sinned and alienated himself, with all his posterity, 
from God. 

" That man who was unborn, himself condemned, 
And, in himself, all, who since him have lived, 
His offspring." 

Our poet also held that for Man the way back to God is 
open only through the miracle of the " Incarnation. 55 

" Man in himself had ever lacked the means 
Of satisfaction. 

* . * * * * He had vainly tried 
Out of his own suffering to pay 
The. rigid satisfaction." 

a It pleased the Word of God to couie 
Amongst them down, to his own person joining 
The nature from its Maker far estranged." 

and 

u God more bounty showed, 
Giving Himself to make man capable 
Of his return to life, than had the terms 
Been mere and unconditional release." 

There is no doubt about our poet's orthodoxy concern- 
ing the doctrine of the absolute " Deity of Christ for he 
speaks of— 

£< Sabellius, Arius, and the other fools 
Who, like the scimitars, reflected back 
The Scripture image by distortion marred." 

As to "Human Salvation" from the ruin which had come 
with Adam's sin ; — Dante, with the sublime assumptions of 
Medieval Theology, spoke out boldly his belief in the per- 
fect " Predestination " which overhangs the destiny of all 
souls. Yet he asserted, over and over again, the freedom of 
man's will, and laid upon each soul the responsibility for 
its future bliss, or woe. If it were necessary to embody 



434 MID-LIFE MEMOKABILIA PAET II 

the Medieval doctrine of " Salvation" in the fewest words, I 
should say it is contained in the two forever contradictory, 
and yet two persistently upheld dogmas, ' 'Divine Predestina- 
tion" and human "Free-will." Accordingly, in this "medie- 
val miracle of song," we hear the saints in Paradise say of 
their bodies on earth that they shall rest there so long,— 



Yet, 



" As till our number equal the decree 
Of the most High." 



" O mortal man, be wary how ye judge 
For we, who see our Maker, know not yet 
The number of the chosen." 



But with this strict " Predestination," as just said, we 
must also place the other utterance, that the 

" Supreme of gifts, which God creating gave 
Of his free bounty, sign most evident 
Of goodness, and in his account most prized, 
Was liberty of will ; the boon wherewith 
All intellectual creatures and them sole 
He hath endowed." 

Moreover, that " Human Nature,"— 

" Created first was blameless, pure and good ; 
But through itself alone was driven forth 
From Paradise because it had eschewed 
The way of truth and life, to evil turned." 

and that,— 

" Sin alone is that 
Which doth disfranchise man and make unlike 
To the chief good." 

"What did Dante think of " The Church ? " Hear these 
words addressed to the radiant spirit of Saint Peter in 
Paradise,— 

" " O everlasting light 

Of him, within whose mighty grasp our Lord 
Did leave the keys, which of this wondrous bliss 
He bare below." 

And what of " The Sacraments?" We have these words 
of Vergil concerning those who were imprisoned within 
the " Limbo" of Hell :— 



1886 DANTE AXD THE MEDIEVAL THEOLOGY 435 

u t " These of sin 

Were blameless; and if aught they merited 
It profits not, since Baptism was not theirs, 
The portal to thy faith." 

For the sacrament of " Penance," let the whole of the 
" Purgatorio " be a commentary : Dante's song was — 

" Of that second kingdom 
Wherein the human spirit doth purge itself 
And to ascend to heaven becomes worthy." 

For the necessity of " Salvation through Christ," see the 
declaration in " Paradiso " :— 

u H one ever hath ascended to this realm 
Who hath not a believer been in Christ 
Either before or after the blest limbs 
Were nailed upon the wood." 

Bat there is no need to illustrate at length the Medieval 
Theology with its expressions as found in Dante's poem. I 
merely state, what anyone can verify, that Dante was a 
thoroughly faithful believer in the Creed which we know 
as that of the Middle Ages. 

To this statement there is, however, one important 
qualification. Dante never placed the authority of Ec- 
clesiastical tradition upon a level with that of the Bible, as 
did the authorities of the Church. 

" Before the Church are the Old and New Testaments," 
Dante wrote in the Vita Nicova. " After the Church are 
traditions which are called Decretals. It follows therefore 
that the authority of the Church depends not on traditions, 
but traditions on the Church." 

In connection w T ith this passage read Dante's own 
" Credo " in the Twenty-fourth Canto of the " Paradiso," 
as confessed to Saint Peter : — 

" u In one God I believe, 

Sole and eterne, who moveth all the heavens 

With love and with desire, himself unmoved; 
And of such faith not only have I proofs 

Physical and metaphysical, but gives them 

Likewise the truth that from this place rains down 
Through Moses, through the Prophets and the Psalms, 

Through the Evangel, and through you, who wrote 

After the fiery Spirit sanctified you ; — 
In Persons three eterne believe, and these 

One essence I believe, so one and trine 

They bear conjunction both with sunt and est 



436 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PART II 



With the profound condition and divine 
Which now I touch upon, doth stamp my mind 
Oft-times the doctrine evangelical. 

This the beginning is, this is the spark 
Which afterwards dilates to vivid flame, 
And, like a star in heaven, is sparkling in me." 

Noticeably, Dante regarded the Popes and the Church 
officials as but men who were responsible for their deeds. 
He consigned evil doers, Popes as well as others, to the 
depths of Hell, — to the circles that seemed to him be- 
fitting their punishment. The evils imposed upon the 
Church by its guardians, he exposed and condemned with 
the most stinging w T ords. Eead Saint Peter's invective 
on the Papacy in the Twenty-seventh Canto of the 
" Paradiso," for illustrations of the poet's judgment upon 
Christ's " Vicars." 

Heaven was "clouded with shame," as Peter told a 
terrible story of Papal corruption ending,— 

" In garb of shepherds these rapacious wolves 
Are seen from here above o'er all the pastures ! 
O wrath of God, why dost thou slumber still ? 

To drink our blood tbe Caorsines and Gascons 
Are making ready. O thou good beginning 
Unto how vile an end must thou needs fall ! " 

IV. 

dantb's PHILOSOPHY. 

There is but little time now left for comment on Dante's 
Philosophy. I may say, however, that this philosophy 
was essentially that of the Schoolmen. Dante was a 
Platonist with reference to the " Divine Ideas and he was 
an Aristotelian in his " logical processes." It would aid us 
greatly in our study of much that is superficially obscure 
in this marvellous poem to secure a clear perception of 
Dante's philosophic notion of "God," and of God's relation 
to the Universe. 

Like a true Scholastic, Dante did not try to put Eeason 
abftve Faith. He accepted the teachings of the Church 
without question. 

Now, prescribed in the faith of the Church was what is 
named " Creationism." In this belief it is assumed that 
God and the Universe are not essentially connected. In the 



1886 DANTE AND THE MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY 437 



Medieval Greed, God is posited as pervading the Universe ; 
but the Universe is not thought of as of and in the Divine 
Substance. It is the doctrine of the Church that God has 
created all things out of Nothing. This doctrine, the 
Scholastics were pledged to make reasonable ; and in 
the decrees of the Vatican Council of 1870, one may 
read, " The one only true God, to manifest his perfection 
and with absolute freedom of council, created out of 
nothing, from the very first being of time, both the 
spiritual and corporeal creature, and afterwards the human 
creature, in a sense of both consisting of spirit and body." 

In Dante's thought, therefore, God was believed in as 
one Being, and the Universe as essentially an Other. So 
far as valid reasoning goes, of course it is mere word jug- 
glery to say this ; but this phrasing expresses the tradi- 
tional faith of Medieval Theology. The learning of the 
Middle Ages had wrought with extreme effort to establish 
this belief. 

Dante, in his thought of God and the Universe, did not 
rise above his times. His philosophy was thereby based not 
upon mystery in thought but upon irreconcilable contradic- 
tion ; — by faith he claimed to hold both the absolute eternity 
and the infinitude of God and the creation of the Universe 
by God, yet to hold also the undivineness and essential 
separateness from God of that which He had created. 

Eead the First Canto of the " Paradiso," with this fact 
remembered; and, in reading, note the passage,— 

"True is it, that as often times the form 

Accords not with the intention of the art, 
Because in answering is matter deaf, 

So likewise from this course doth deviate 

Sometimes the creature, who the power possesses, 
Though thus impelled, to swerve some other way." 

To Dante, as to all Medieval philosophers, Matter was 
undivine, except as having been brought into existence out 
of Nothing by means of God's Omnipotence. 

So, of course, Dante did not hold the human soul to be 
Divine, except through its being a creature of God, brought 
into existence out of nothing, only much higher up in the 
scale of creation than the degree given to the stone or 
animal. Essential Divinity for Man Dante found only in 



438 MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PART II 

the inflow of the Divine essence whieh man might receive 
through a miraculous union with the God-man, Christ. 
Of the highest importance in the theology of the Middle 
Ages therefore was the ' ' Eucharist/ ' the Sacrament by 
which the essential God may be assimilated to human 
nature. 

The consummate aim of human life, according to our 
poet's thought is to gain possession of what he called "the 
good of the intellect," or perfect knowledge of God. In 
developing this conviction we find Dante uttering some 
of the grandest truths man has ever apprehended ; truths, 
however, which are wholly irreconcilable' with his 
Medieval belief in God and the Universe. 

Eead the Twenty-ninth Canto of the " Paradiso," to see 
how Dante carried out the Platonic notion of creation. 

u Not to acquire some good unto himself 

Which is impossible, but that his splendor 

In its resplendency may say * Subsisto,' 
In his eternity outside of time, 

Outside all other limits, as it pleased him, 

Into new Loves the Eternal Love unfold ed." 

Also, note in the Twentieth Canto how Dante struggled 
with the Scholastic doctrine of the relation of Faith and 
Eeason, and was almost driven into asserting the inde- 
pendence of the Eeason : — 

"The blessed standard made to me reply 

To keep me not in wonderment suspended : 
I see that thou believest in these things 

Because I say them ; but thou seest not how, 

So that, although believed in they are hidden, 
Thou doest as he doth who a thing by name 

Well apprehendeth, but its quiddity 

Cannot perceive unless another show it." 

. Obaerve, too, in the Twenty-sixth Canto, what Dante 
says of the necessity of beholding the Truth in order to gain 
highest happiness. 

". . . . By philosophic arguments, 
And by authority that hence descends, 
Such love must needs imprint itself in me; 
For Good, so far as good, when comprehended 
Doth straight enkindle love, and so much greater 
As more of goodness in itself it holds ; 



1SSG DANTE AND THE MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY 439 



Then to that essence 

More than elsewhither must the mind be moved 
Of everyone, in loving, who discerns 
The truth in which this evidence is founded." 

And, as symptomatic of the spirit of the New Age which 
began to make Dante restless under the dogmatic bondage 
of the Scholasticism, from which, however, he knew no 
way to free himself, read the Twenty-ninth Canto, where 
the poet causes Beatrice, symbol of the Divine Wisdom, to 
say, 

Thou hast on earth 

Heard vain disputers, reasoners in the schoools, 

Canvass the angelic nature and dispute 

Its powers of apprehension, memory, choice. 

'Tis well to take from me the truth 
Pure and without disguise which they below 
Equivocating, darken and perplex." 

Or better still, take this passage from the Thirteenth 
Canto concerning Solomon : — - 

He asked 

For wisdom to the end he might be king 
Sufficient; not the number to search out 
Of the celestial movers; or to know, 
If necessary with contingent e'er 
Have made necessity; or whether that 
Be granted, that first motion is, or if 
Of the mid-circle can, by art, be made 
Triangle with each corner blunt or sharp.," 

The last three cantos of the " Divine Comedy " are a 
sublime, a transcendent, aspiration. The poet, seemingly, 
was struggling out of his inherited philosophy into the 
perfect and eternal Ideal of the human soul ; that is, of 
the complete and conscious union of the human will with 
that of God v The meaning of the last three lines of this 
exalted song can never be exhausted^ 

" Here vigor failed the lofty fantasy ; 

But now was turning my desire and will, 

Even as a wheel that equally is moved, 
The Love which moves the sun and the other stars." 

We now leave our theme. In preparing this very brief 
and superficial study, kindly remember, I have felt all the 
while that, with but our few moments at command, I must 
yet bring to you a measure of centuries, The Middle Ages 



440 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



were a deep, into which a mighty flood of thought and pur- 
pose was poured. Possibly my offering may serve to discover 
more clearly to you this great deep. I close with the hope 
that each of you in the coming months will launch upon 
it, and, with your own insight, traverse it and learn for 
yourself its wonders. 

II. 

At another time during this decade, — I think it was in 
the winter of 1888, — I was invited to deliver a lecture 
before The Minneapolis Art Society. With my readings 
about the Middle Ages, for the work of our study-class in 
Saint Paul in the study of Dante, in mind I prepared 
the address which here follows : — 

The Close of 
The Medieval Art of Painting. 

Some years ago, one of my recreations was study of the 
Art of the European Eenaissance. A long residence in 
Germany and much travel in Italy gave ample opportu- 
nity for familiarity with the master-products of that 
momentous achievement. I remember well the luxurious 
pleasure with which I visited the art galleries of those 
countries, where many of the marvellous aesthetic treasures 
of the world are preserved. Especially, I recollect how I 
became engrossed with those harmonies of gorgeous color, 
combined with highly vitalized, natural human beauty, and 
the displays of familiar landscape that distinguish the work 
of such geniuses of the brush as Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, 
Michael Angelo and Kaphael. 

But, in contrast with these splendid productions, I saw, . 
also preserved in many places, much else that was classed 
as artistic painting. So widely different, however, were 
these latter works from the former, in skill of color-com- 
bination and in technique, but especially in composition 
and motive, that, at times, it was difficult to find a much 
more tangible relation between the two art groups than 
that of contrast. Yet, historically, the free, beautiful and 



1S8S CHARACTER OF MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANITY 441 



majestic naturalism of the art of supreme masters, such as 
Da Vinci and Michael Angelo, so I learned, was but the 
culmination of a process of development which had had its 
beginnings in the very age from which these rigid, un- 
comely, unnatural relics of the painter's art had come. 
Curiosity about the process that had wrought this wonder- 
ful result led into some highly, interesting studies. 

This evening I invite you to go back with me and take 
some glances at the beginnings of those influences w 7 hich 
at length brought about the great European Renaissance 
and, therewith, the rebirth of the natural art in whose 
growth Da "Vinci, Angelo and their peers were made 
possible. Our special theme is " The Close of the Medieval 
Art of Painting/ ' 

The Middle Ages, you remember, was an era in the 
history of Europe extending over about one thousand years. 
Speaking generally, w T e may measure it as the time 
included between the Fifth and the Fifteenth of the 
Christian centuries. Its beginnings came with the con- 
version of the Roman Empire into an Ecclesiastical 
monarchy ; its close appeared when the Papal Church 
began to lose universal sovereignty over Western Europe. 
Medieval Art, therefore, is the art of Europe that w T as 
synchronous with the Middle Ages. It was the art that 
belonged to the centuries lying between the disappearance 
of what is styled Graeco-Eoman, or Classic, Art and the rise 
of the Art of the Renaissance. Let us put the definition 
into a form somewhat more pertinent to our subject. 
Since Art, whatever else it may be, is an expression of the 
impulses, the motives, the experiences, the ideals of the 
people among whom it appears, Medieval Art was a 
bodying forth of the faith, the aspirations, the moods, fears 
and hopes of the life of Europe while it was under the 
sway of Christianity, as conceived of and served during 
the Middle Ages. 

To Medieval Christianity, then, we must turn in 
order to learn what the influences and qualities were that 
gave. to Medieval Art its distinctive character. 

Medieval Christianity, like any other historic Christ- 
ianity was an exceedingly complex embodiment of aims 



442 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



and agencies interacting with myriad kinds of human life. 
But there is one word which may be used to specialize its 
character: above all else, it was actuated by Otherworld- 
liness. 

Of course, through the thousand years of which we are 
speaking, men and women could not, any more than they 
can now, escape from living under the laws of this world. 
They were compelled, then as now, to engage in the 
struggle for physical existence. They were, by nature, 
forced to labor, then as now, for food, for clothing, for 
shelter; and, then as now, there were multitudes 
who were ambitious for wealth, power, honors and 
ease. But, when we have granted all these facts, 
we must also note that then, as never before or since in 
Christendom, the dominant motive, upheld to every human 
being and borne in upon him by countless influences 
operating in Society, State and Church, was the all 
momentous necessity to seek in every possible form, 
freedom from bondage to this ivorld of matter and of sense. 

As a special stimulus to this motive, giving it vivid in- 
tensity during the later centuries of the Medieval Era, 
was the awful expectation that the world would soon cease 
to exist. Particularly as the end of the Tenth Century ap- 
proached, multitudes began to expect the long-prophesied, 
catastrophe in which the present world was to be utterly 
destroyed and a new heavens and new earth brought into 
being. Under sway of this terror the peoples of Western 
Europe were rigidly held : they were dealt with as denizens 
of a perishing world ; their one aim was set forth as 
alienation from this earth's life, so that they might the 
better be prepared for citizenship in the world that was to 
come. They had received from past ages the " Holy 
Catholic Church " as their infallible mentor ; and their guide 
into the true life. Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church, 
absent but soon to return as Judge and Lord of the world, 
had appointed the Holy Father in Borne as his Substitute 
during his absence. And the supreme duty of every child 
of man was, therefore, unquestioning submission to the 
leadership of Christ's Vicar, the Pope. 

Now, imagine the peoples of Western Europe, by means 



1888 OTHER WORLDLIXESS, MYSTICISM, SYMBOLISM 443 



of imposed decrees and institutions ; through a priesthood, 
and sanctioned ritual and customs, under the control of 
this mighty Autocracy. 

As far as the Papal Church could, it had broken the 
bonds that bind human beings to the present world. As far 
as was possible, it had emancipated spirit from matter ; set 
the soul free, and enslaved the body. Medieval Christianity 
was, distinctively, an avowed spurning of Nature. It urged 
its subjects towards asceticism ; it encouraged monastic 
fanaticism : it sought to suppress natural physical impulse 
even by the use of torture ; it sanctified utter contempt of 
this w r orld. 

The consequence of this engrossing emphasis upon the 
worth of Othericorldliness was, of course, of momentous im- 
port in all the ranges of thought and work w T here it was felt. 
In the realm of Art, therefore, it could not be otherwise 
than essentially anti-naturalistic ; therefore radically unlike 
the effect which appeared in the wonderful art of the Classic 
Age and which appeared. again with the return to Nature 
of the x\rt of the Benaissance. 

Speaking specifically, we see in the Middle Ages so fit- 
ting a sequel of its Otherworldly Mood as this:— Since the 
teaching and the ritual of the all-supreme Church were 
radically hostile to the natural world ; since visible realities 
were held to be worth nothing except as they suggested, or 
could be used to interpret, invisible ideas ; since the things 
seen w ? ere given value only as they directed thought and 
feeling towards things unseen, the multitudes over which 
the Medieval Church had charge naturally became, in a high 
degree, mystical. For the same reasons learning and the 
means and methods of instruction became as inevitably 
symbolic. Mysticism and Symbolism were qualities, con- 
sequently, eminently distinctive of the thought and life 
of the Middle Ages, and, therein inevitablv, of Medieval 
Art. 

After the downfall of the Roman Empire in the Fifth 
Century, there w r as for a long time no Art of any kind in 
Western Europe that could be dignified by the name. 
And during the "Dark Ages," — those centuries of servile sup- 
erstition and ignorance that were passed midway in the 



444 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PAET II 



Medieval thousand years, — the treasures of Ancient and 
Classic Art had become practically unknown. War, 
pillage, fanatical adherence to the perverted Christianity 
of the era, had either destroyed them, or put them out of 
notice and care. Medieval Christendom passed from 
century to century in a deepening ignorance of science, 
philosophy, mechanics or of any progressive industry. The 
peoples of Europe were helplessly dominated by a mighty 
organism of tradition and superstition which, avowedly, 
existed only to prepare the faithful for an order of things 
that should not be of this world. 

Medieval Art was given its birth and growth just because 
of this mighty dominance of Otherworldliness. The Papal 
Monarchy which had been erected upon the ruins of the 
fallen Empire of Borne, in order that it might the better guide, 
or the better subjugate to its traditions and dogmas, the im- 
potent, ignorant masses that had come under its control, 
began to utilize more elaborately, in its cathedrals and 
chapels, distinctive figures and colors. The artists, who w r ere 
at the same time official servants of the Church, sought to 
produce, more than all else, effective symbols for the articles 
of their mystic faith. Their w r ork stood for nothing 
tangible and real. Their endeavor was to bcdy forth 
qualities, attributes, spiritual emotions. Their methods led 
them into crude and often extravagant representations of 
familiar objects, but only that, thereby, they might make 
unfamiliar dogmas and traditions intelligible to the ignorant 
multitudes. 

Because of this work, there came into use, in the course 
of time, a large array of approved symbols which through 
succeeding centuries were elabarated as fit vehicles for the 
conveyance of the teachings of the Church. 

It did not matter so much at first what was chosen to be 
a symbol as the manner of its shaping. If the color and 
form but served to convey somehow the needed tradition or 
dogma, the Church used it and confirmed it. At length there 
was developed an authoritative catalogue of ecclesiastical 
symbols. And the symbols most favored were those 
which, while they served their purpose, were, at the same 
time, most free from a disturbing likeness to natural things. 



1S88 OTHERWOKLDLINESS, MYSTICISM, SYMBOLISM 445 

Through this very iinlikeness to things natural, the other- 
worldly mood was all the better gratified. The worshipper 
was not distracted by suggestions of the world of sense. 

In Quitter's biography of Giotto, the writer says, "In the 
art of the Fifth to the Tenth Centuries we find an almost 
total absence of all study of either nature or man ; the 
former being totally disregarded, the latter represented 
under rude types which- were repeated from age to age 
without variety or improvement. Pictures were less a re- 
presentation of an occurrence than a type to recall some 
subject to the mind."' And the eminent art critic and 
historian, J. A, Symonds, has said, " During the interval 
between the closing of ancient and the opening of the 
modern age, the faith of Christians had attached itself to 
symbols and material objects little better than fetiches. 
The host, the relic, the wonder-working shrine, things 
endowed with a mysterious potency evoked the yearning 
and the awe of Medieval multitudes. The earth of Jeru- 
salem, for instance, the Holy Sepulchre, the sudarium of 
Saint Veronica aroused their deepest sentiments of awful 
adoration/' 

At the same time, in apparent contradiction to this 
demand for the things of sense as signs of supersensual 
power, 'Mysticism " opened for the dreaming soul a realm of 
spiritual rapture." Referring to the art of painting, the 
same author writes, " Votaries who kissed a fragment of the 
cross with passion could have found but little to satisfy 
their ardor in pictures painted by a man of genius. 
Miracle-working pictures, as we know, are mostly but 
miserable as paintings," There is a story, pertinent here, 
told of a later time when the power of the Medieval Church 
was breaking, and Art was returning to Nature. Fra Bar- 
tolommeo, (1475-1517), had painted a " Saint Sebastian " 
for the cloister of San Marco in Florence. This artist, born 
of the new age, intended to present to the spectators a 
picture of a young man, strong and beautiful, who had 
endured to the end and won the crown of martyrdom. 
Xo other ideas than those of constancy, heroism and faith 
were meant to be expressed ; and the artist had manifested 
them in a natural and beautiful form. But it was not long 



446 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



before the Dominican Confessors at the monastery learned 
that the ignorant penitents who came to them had found 
this picture a stumbling block and snare to their souls. 
They were forced to remove it from public sight. 

Controlled by Medieval Christianity Art was sur- 
rounded, consequently, by barriers that prevented all real 
representations of bodily naturalness, strength, grace and 
beauty. In his attempts to delineate sacred subjects the 
artist was unable to render them in any manner human 
and real. In the established treatment of religious events 
" hardly ever was there a variation of grouping or the 
introduction of a new figure." For hundreds of years, for 
instance, in the exhibits of the gieatest event in Christian 
history, the Crucifixion, " Saint John and Mary stood in 
the same attitudes at the right and left of the cross, 
while Jesus, in the centre of the picture, gazed upon 
the spectators with the placid eyes of divine power." 
To the end of the Eleventh Century, all natural expression, 
such as that of pain, was entirely absent from the Divine 
Victim's face ; it was absolutely forbidden by the Church. 

We must characterize Medieval Art, therefore, as Art 
separated, as far as possible, from Nature and natural 
human life. It teas art servilely subjected to the mystical 
symbolism of the then dominant Ecclesiasticism. Its 
supreme mission was conveyance to the worshipping 
multitudes of the non-natural, the contra-natural, the 
otherworldly message to which Medieval Christianity was 
consecrated. 

In this fact lies the clue, the interpreting guide, with 
which we are enabled to pass understanding^ through the 
confused labyrinth of Medieval Art, and discover the 
beginnings and development of the influences that, at 
length, made it a memory only. By means of this guide 
the enormous heritage of form, color and theme that w 7 as 
produced between the Fifth and Twelfth Centuries, and 
in part is still present in some cathedrals, monasteries, 
convents and museums of Europe, becomes luminous with 
meaning. Truth to form, feature, attitude, place are of 
course not to be expected among them. 

The mystic symbol embodied in them is their reason for 



1888 • MEDIEVAL ART AND THE CRUSADES 447 

being. Absence of faithfully depicted landscape in them 
was, of course, no artistic demerit ; this world was doomed 
and perishing, and ought to be ignored. The experiences 
of the soul ; its perils, its aspirations, its struggles, its 
triumph or doom, — these were the one purpose of artistic 
portrayal. 

The first actual check to the movement of the Middle 
Ages came in the year One Thousand, and thereby came 
the first sign of change in Medieval Art. That fateful 
year arrived ; it passed like other years. But millions 
upon millions of human beings, as they saw it pass, were 
amazed that this world still remained. Long had it been 
taught that, in the year One Thousand, the Avenging 
Lord and Judge, Christ would sweep the earth with 
destruction ; and for this culmination of the ages myriads 
of terror-stricken souls had been waiting. 

Inevitably, then, when it was realized that the long 
held prophecy had failed, events issuing from a new order 
of thought and life began to appear and to follow one 
another in rapid succession. 

Before the Eleventh Century closed, the Crusades had 
been inaugurated. The sacred city of Jerusalem had been 
captured and put under the sway of a Christian king. 
Thereafter, for two hundred years, these invasions of Asia 
by Christian hosts continued. The Crusades, though they 
wrought incalculable loss of life and property, nevertheless 
brought Italians, Franks and Teutons into close contact 
with Greeks, and the Mohammedan peoples who at that 
time were the world's real conservators of letters, of the 
sciences, and of natural art. In this way it came about that, 
in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, Arab and Greek 
artists began to appear in Sicily, in Venice and in Florence, 
brought by Crusaders returning from the East. With the 
coming of these artists, and also of some Greek and 
Arabian scholars, new movements were started, which, at 
length, brought about the momentous era in Western 
Europe known as " The Bevival of Learning," before 
which Medieval Christianity gradually weakened, and, at 
last, lost its ancient and absolute sovereignty. 

Naturally, then, as part of the revolutionary change 



448 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



affecting the life of Western Europe, Medieval Art began 
to pass away ; and the art of the New Age, the art that 
came from a return to Nature and to real things had its 
beginnings. 

The development of Modern Art, however, was of slow 
growth. For a long time it was very feeble and hesitat- 
ing. The first signs of the incoming of Modem Painting, 
for instance, appeared in an improvement of the mural 
decorations of the Churches. 

In the Thirteenth Century, the pow T er of the Kontan 
Catholic Church was greater than it had ever been. The 
Pope had become an autocrat who, even in civil affairs, 
was mightier than any other monarch in Christendom. 
This surpassing power, among other of its manifestations, 
was lavish in its art patronage in the cathedrals, churches, 
and representative ecclesiastical buildings. The most 
elaborate pictorial decorations were designed and carried 
forward in them. Places of public worship, thereby, became 
more than ever the " Bible of the unlearned. 99 Painter 
and sculptor strove to cover walls, ceilings, facades, portals, 
fonts, and pulpits with forms and figures showing forth the 
traditions of prophets, apostles and saints. They burdened 
them with pictured lessons of faith and piety ; with graphic 
symbols of the curse of sin ; forewarnings of divine wrath 
and fore-glimpses of heavenly bliss. 

In this outflowering of ecclesiastical decoration at the 
dawning of the New Age, Painting became the art of arts. 
Nothing marks the closing period of the Middle Ages 
better than just this increasing service of the painter to the 
faith and aims of the Church. As far as the spirit of the 
time could yield itself to advancing naturalism in Western 
Europe in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, 
Painting received from it the impulses which at length 
opened the way to the splendid career achieved for it in 
the next two hundred years. And here is a momentous 
fact ; the very decorations that were profusely displayed 
in the cathedrals and churches, then, instead of making 
the fetters of the Ecclesiastical Autocracy stronger, instead 
of deepening, among the devout, the past ascetic mysti- 
cism, really helped to restore to the worshippers a sense of 



1S8S 



THE CHTECH OF SAIXT FBANCIS 



449 



their own worth, and the worth of the present world and 
of the life around them. 

Among signal illustrations of this sumptuous era of 
pictorial decoration, we find foremost among them the 
magnificent Church of Assisi. This church w T as built in 
the Thirteenth Century in memory of Saint Francis (1182- 
1226), the founder of the *' Franciscan Order of Friars." 
Dante, in a description of Assisi, wrote : — " On that side 
where the mountain slopes most gently, a sun rose upon 
world ; therefore let him who would speak rightly of the 
place call it not Assisi but Oriente.'' 

This wonderful church, it has baen said, is not 
only the most important art monument of the Thir- 
teenth Century, but is, in its paintings, a brilliant record 
of the revival of Italian art. Taine describes the church as 
" risen and gloriously flowered like an architectural shrine 
over the body of the saint." "That body," he writes, "lies in 
the crypt which, dark as a sepulchre, holds its tomb. A 
few brass lamps, almost without lights, burn here 
eternally, like stars lost in mournful obscurity. But that 
which cannot be represented by words is the Middle 
Church, over the tomb. It is long, low and vault-like, 
supported by small round arches, curving in the half 
shadow. A coating of sombre blue and of reddish bands 
starred with gold, a marvellous embroidery of ornaments, 
wreaths, delicate scroll-work, leaves and painted figures, 
covers the arches and ceiling with its harmonious multi- 
tude. On one hand is the choir surcharged and 
sown with sculptures : yonder a rich, winding, stair- 
case with elaborate railings, — a light marble pulpit and 
funereal monuments. Here and there, haphazard, a lofty 
sheaf of slender columns, whose arrangement seems a 
phantasy ; and in the labyrinth of coloured foliage, a 
profusion of ascetic paintings with their halos of faded 
gold. 

" The Upper Church, on the summit, shoots up as bril- 
liant, as aerial, as triumphant as the Under Church is low 
and grave. It tapers its columns, refines its arches, 
mounts upward and upward, illuminated by the full day 
of its lofty windows, by the stained glass and golden 



450 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA 



PART II 



thread of stars which flash through the arches and vaults 
that confine the beatified beings and sacred personages 
with which it is painted from pavement to ceiling. Time 
has now undoubtedly undermined them, but the mind 
immediately revives w T hat is lost to the eye, and it again 
beholds the angelic pomp such as it first burst forth six 
hundred years ago." Quilter claims that there is perhaps 
no building in the civilized world in which so much 
color-beauty is concentrated as in the Assisi Lower 
Church. " For six hundred years," he writes, " those 
walls have glowed like jewels through the dim religious 
light. They are fading now. But they were fresh and 
beautiful when Cimabue and Giotto painted them/ 5 

Cimabue and Giotto ! These are the two names that 
have been waiting for us ever since we began writing of our 
theme. These names tell of the two men who, more than all 
others, were the source of that epoch-making out-flowering 
of symbolic and mystical painting which marked the close 
of Medieval Art ; and who were also the heralds and pro- 
phetic exemplars of the natural and truer art of the 
Renaissance. 

Cimabue and Giotto ! They were of both the past 
and the future ; of the old and the new. From their 
hands were placed upon the walls, not only of the Assisi 
Church, but of many churches and palaces in Italy, the 
great spiritual conceptions that had been dignified and 
taught in the Middle Ages; but as they did this they 
so utilized the revived and truer principles of their art that 
they were really the forerunners of the legitimate 
naturalism of Modern Painting. 

Giovanni Cimabue, the medievalist who was also the 
first of the moderns among painters, was born in 1240, of a 
noble family in Florence, and lived until 1302. He became 
a student in the great school of Santa Maria Novella. 
But, neglectful of his studies, we are told, he habitually 
stole away to watch the Greek artists who were at work on 
the Convent Church. This truancy at length caused his 
parents to put the boy under the care of those foreign 
painters. With them his genius developed. His work 
looked at now is poor enough, we must say, compared 



1888 



CIMABUE AND GIOTTO 



451 



with the masterpieces of later art-leaders ; but, at the time, 
it was so excellent and so daring in its advances that critics 
have named him " the first of the Florentines," and " the 
Father of Modern Painting. " When he was but twenty- 
five years old, he was invited to take part in the decoration 
of the Assisi Church. What he did in both the Lower 
and Upper Churches, considering all things, was marvel- 
lous. His masterpiece, a Madonna, was painted for a 
chapel in the Santa Maria Church, — the church in which 
his youthful enthusiasm was nurtured. When it was 
finished it was carried in triumph about the city amidst 
rejoicing multitudes 

This picture represents the Virgin "in a red tunic and 
blue mantle, seated in a white draperied chair, 
— the drapery flowered in blue and gold — the chair 
supported by six kneeling angels. The infant Jesus 
rests on the Virgin's lap, clad in a white tunic and 
purple mantle, holding out a hand in the position of 
benediction." Naturally, the excellence of the picture is 
only relative. Only in comparison with the other art 
work of his day was it marked by great superiority. But 
that is its merit. Yet, there is, so it is said, a certain 
natural tenderness and dignity in both mother and child. 
Cimabue became the favourite of his native Florence, and 
the pride of Italy. Dante was his friend. 

The most interesting incident in Cimabue's life, however, 
so far as our present theme is concerned, happened in a 
ride which he took one day over the Fiesole hill. You are 
probably familiar with the story. Cimabue met there a 
shepherd boy, who was to be, far more than himself had 
ever dreamed of becoming, the leading regenerator of 
Italian Art, — Giotto. The picture of a sheep, drawn by 
the shepherd lad upon stone with a piece of flint, was the 
beginning of a career which under Cimabue's skilful 
guidance soon placed Giotto among the greatest artists of 
the world. 

Giotto was born in 1276, and died in 1337. In child- 
hood, as a sheep-guard, he lived close to nature, and in 
after life he never lost the ties that were found then. In 
his work as artist there soon ceased to be any actual 



452 



MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA PART II 



bondage to the artificial Symbolism and Mysticism then 
dominant. He loved this world and the living things 
around him. " He took his models from among men and 
women, and he introduced into his pictures the landscape 
that he knew, and the sheep, cattle and living things he 
found there." His great aim was to reproduce that which 
he saw. In his relation to life generally, we hear that he 
was " a kindly man, witty, quick of understanding, 
thoroughly wholesome in character and with a strong love 
of letters." Among his friends were Dante, Petrarch, and 
Bocaccio. 

Giotto's most noted works are, probably, some frescoes 
in Padua, depicting the history of the Virgin and the 
Christ. " They are arranged in three rows ; in all thirty- 
nine scenes. Medallions of saints stand above, against the 
blue, star-studded ceiling, and, beneath, are the virtues and 
vices, single figures, noble in conception and worthy of the 
tradition that they were the result of the united thoughts of 
Dante and himself." They are considered to be among the 
finest existing examples of poetic and intellectual symbols. 

But above the high altar of the church at Assisi, the 
revolutionary art of Giotto appears at its culmination. 
There the traditional espousal of Saint Francis to Poverty, 
Chastity and Obedience is pictured. " First, is shown the 
monk sealing the fortress of Chastity ; then, the angel of 
Obedience laying a yoke upon his neck ; and then, the 
Saint placing a ring upon a finger of Poverty as his bride, 
while Christ blesses the union. The last portrayal depicts 
the apotheosis of Saint Francis, enthroned in glory and 
honored by angels.'' These pictures are characterized as 
not concealing any abstruse spiritual meanings, but as 
being plainly painted for the poor laity to read. The 
artist presented " the virgin form of Poverty with briars 
beneath her feet and roses blooming around her head." In 
a poem that he wrote, he showed clearly that he was free 
from fanciful monasticism and took a practical view of 
worldly wealth. In the lines which I quote now he 
speaks of the poverty which comes to one against one's 
will. These verses have no trace f in them of the Medieval 
spirit. Of enforced poverty he wrote : — 



1888 



FEA ANGELIC 0 : MASACCIO 



453 



" It never can he doubted that therein 

Lies broad the way to sin. 

For often times it makes the judge unjust; 

In dames and damsels doth their honor kill ; 

It begets violence and villainies, 

And theft and wicked lies. 

If once the coat give view 

Of the real back, farewell all dignity, 

Each, therefore, strives that he 

Should by no means admit her to his sight 

Who only thought on makes his face turn white." 

Giotto's style in painting was peculiarly original He 
represented many Scriptural scenes, and many events in 
the lives of saints which Medieval artists had never thought 
to portray. " He shunned imitation. Moreover, he had a 
strong dramatic feeling. He linked together human and 
divine things ; thus he spoke to the hearts of the people." 

It is of little moment that his work was imperfect, as 
compared with that of the masters of the Renaissance, 
when we consider the new spirit animating the movement 
of his brush ; his daring invention, and the radical changes 
he wrought. " His compositions contained much natural 
detail. He used actual human portraiture. He had the 
power of illustrating the real meanings of his subjects, 
Few other painters have exerted so radical and widespread 
an influence as he." So far beyond all the others of his 
time was he that, so it is adjudged, no advance beyond 
him was made for almost a hundred years. 

The Medieval Art of Painting practically closed with 
Giotto and his fellow-workers. He and they had depart- 
ed so far in motive and in expression from the art of the 
passing Age, w T hose life, thought and aspirations they still 
■embodied in form and color, that they were really workers 
in a new day. 

There was but one eminent survival of Medieval Art 
after Giotto, preceding the full flowering of the Renaissance. 
The survivor was the angelic brother of the monastery of 
San Marco in Florence. Fra Angelico, styled " the 
Blessed/' was born near the close of the Fourteenth Cen- 
tury (1387). But very little heed did he take of the new 
art developing around him. He clung faithfully to the 
past. Yet, even while he did this, he infused into the old 



454 



MID-LIFE MEMOEABILIA PART II 



methods a peculiar and exquisite beauty. His work was 
a lovely afterglow of the departing symbolic mysticism. 
He was the last faithful servant of the Art which had 
found its mission in portraying the human soul struggling 
to live emancipated from Nature and the realm of sense. 
After him the Art that was blind to this world ceased to 
prevail, and in its place appeared Art with eyes opened to 
visions of both heaven and the earth. 

Contemporary with Fra Angelico, came the one who 
first in the history of Painting stands fully turned from the 
Medieval past, having entered the age that now is, — 
Masaccio. As the Fifteenth Century opened, in the year 
1402, in Florence, Masaccio was born, And Masaccio, 
though he died at the age of only twenty-seven, became 
for Art history the fully equipped pioneer of the New Era, 
the greatest master in the beginnings of Modern Painting. 
"With him Realism completely took possession of the place 
Mysticism had held ; Nature supplanted arbitrary Symbol. 
The conventionalities that before his day had appeared in 
all pictured work were by him wholly ignored. In 
Masaccio } s achievements the art historian discerns clearly 
that Medieval Painting had at last come to a close, and 
that the Painting of Europe's Renaissance and of the 
centuries since then, had really been begun. 



/. Appointment to the Japan Unitarian Mission. — 
Towards the close of this decade, — from 1880 to 1889, — I 
had become more and more closely associated with news- 
paper writing and general literature. I was beginning at 
that time to think that, possibly, these occupations would 
ere long engross me, and thereby greatly change my pro- 
fessional career, when, much to my surprise and gratifica- 
tion, I was recalled to active service as a minister by being 
appointed to the Mission that the American Unitarian 
Association had been invited to establish in Japan. 

I willingly accepted the appointment ; and since then, 



1888 APPOINTMENT TO JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION 455 

for twenty-five years, my main interest and endeavor has 
been to interpret Christianity to the Japanese people in the 
liberal and rational form in which it had been disclosed to 
me personally ; also, in accordance with the letter of in- 
structions I had received from the home Association, to 
" express the sympathy of the Unitarians of America for 
progressive religious movements in Japan and to give all 
necessary information to the leaders of religious thought 
and action in that country." 



t 



III 

SOME RECORDS 

OF THE 

JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION 

1889=1914 



Who serve have life : already they are dead 
Who seek no task for hand, or heart, or head ; 

Who smooth no path that following feet may tread 
And, listless, dream when youthful years have fled. 

" Meditations." 

Bangor, Jfame, 1875. (?) 



PART THREE 



SOME RECORDS 

OF THE 

JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION. 



In the autumn of the year 1889 I came to Japan, one 
of a group, described herein later, commissioned to establish 
the Japan Unitarian Mission. I was thenceforward in the 
immediate service of the Mission until the spring of 1900, 
when I returned to America. 

After a stay of some years in the home-land, during 
which time I maintained correspondence with my Japan- 
ese friends, and visited them for the winter of 1905-06, I 
came to this country again in 1909 ; resumed charge of the 
Mission ; and, since then, have been continuously associ- 
ated with its work. 

I shall not venture in these " Memories " upon any- 
specialized record of personal experiences in the very 
interesting and, in some respects, momentous relations 
I have for twenty-five years, now, held with this 
notable people of the Far East. ' I am not writing an 
" autobiography,' ' however autobiographical the " Mem- 
ories " may be. Besides, most of my experiences here, 
which would especially interest home friends, are already 
quite well known among them through many letters, 



460 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PART III 



abundant newspaper notes, magazine articles and some 
books. 

Nor need I embody in these pages a detailed history of the 
Mission. That has been given so copiously in my official 
correspondence with the American Unitarian Association, 
and in numerous published repoits, that the full story of 
the Mission's career and work is to be easily learned from 
them by any who may care to know it. 

I desire, however, to bring together among these 
" Memorials " a few of my more important writings con- 
cerning Japan and our Mission, which I have from time 
to time published, but which now are scattered among 
various pamphlets and periodicals. They will serve 
as a measurably good indication of the very eventful, in- 
teresting, and instructive response with which the American 
Unitarians have met the proffered wishes of the Japanese 
to have among them a representatively free and rational 
interpretation of Christianity, and of our exposition of the 
higher, or spiritual phases of Western Civilization. 

I. 

After I had been four years in Japan, I made a visit 
to Boston. During the visit, I delivered an address, by 
special invitation, at a Union Meeting in the Second 
Church, June 18th, 1893. In this address I summarized 
the conclusions which I had at the time reached in my 
study of the Japanese in their religious relations. I re- 
produce the address to serve as a general preliminary 
survey here of the distinctive work to which our 
Mission had been called. 



1893 JAPAN AND ITS EELIGIOUS PROBLEM 461 



The Eeligious Problem in Japan : 
How Solve It? 

About eight thousand miles to the west, in the Pacific 
Ocean, lies a range of islands on which for the past forty years 
a spectacle has been exhibited which in some of its aspects 
is the most important, and altogether the most interesting, 
that modern mankind have witnessed. There, a nation of 
more than forty millions of subjects, within the lifetime of 
one generation, has undergone politically almost a complete 
revolution; has been radically affected by formerly unfelt 
social forces ; commercially and industrially has been 
carried far in ways it never before knew ; and, for those 
relations which concern the deepest life of man, ethics and 
religion, has practically lost the guides it once followed, 
and as yet has found no new leaders whom it will, or dare, 
trust. The Japanese people, after more than two and a 
half centuries of isolation from the rest of humankind, 
have, without preparation for it, been compelled to see 
their national barriers broken through, and their unique 
civilization, probably the most complete social order man 
has achieved, invaded and turned into perilous confusion. 
In a word, " the island empire " of the Far East has had to 
endure an irruption of the civilization of America and 
Europe ; its multitudes thereby being confronted with 
unexpected problems, — problems almost wholly alien 
to them, — whose demands, however, they cannot now 
ignore ; whose solution they must attempt ; upon the 
solution of which, indeed, depends henceforward national 
welfare or disaster. Among these problems is one in 
which we and those who are like us ought to take a 
solicitous interest:— I mean that which involves religious 
faith and life. I therefore have chosen for my subject, 
" The Eeligious Problem in Japan : how 'solve it ? " 

In order to make what I wish to say in answer to this 
question intelligible, I shall begin at some seeming distance 
from my theme. The home of the Japanese has had not 
a little to do with their unique career. Geographically, the 
Japanese have been peculiarly situated. They occupy a 



462 



THE JAPAN UNITABIAN MISSION PART III 



long group of close-lying islands, extending, if we include 
lately acquired territory, from the latitude of Labrador to 
that of Cuba. If, however, by some terrestial cataclysm 
the coast of the United States from south Maine to north 
Florida, as far inland as the Appalachian Mountains, were 
broken from the continent, tossed almost as a whole into 
high, jagged peaks and precipitous ravines, and thrust 
three hundred miles and more out into the Atlantic Ocean, 
there would be in position and area a counterpart of what 
may be called Japan proper. And if in such convulsion 
New England and eastern New York were made an 
island three score miles distant from land to the south, if 
Georgia were also surrounded by water, and if the south- 
eastern half of South Carolina were itself insulated with 
an islet-studded stretch of water like Long Island 
Sound between it and the main land, then, you would 
have feature for feature the four chief islands on 
which the people of whom we speak when we say the 
Japanese have their dwelling place. 

When and whence came to these islands those who 
became the Japanese people no one knows. In prehistoric 
times, and in all likelihood from northern Asia, there was 
through Korea, the nearest continental promontory, an 
incursion of wanderers, — physically short-statured, dark- 
skinned, round-faced, high-cheeked, broad and fiat of nose, 
and projecting in jaw, — who made places for themselves 
in the southwest, driving before them the much more un- 
developed human-kind already at home there, — the hairy 
Ainu, who have, all through the nation's history in 
diminishing numbers, remained a race distinct from their 
conquerors. Also, in prehistoric times, came bold warriors, 
whether from the archipelago to the south or from Central 
Asia, cannot yet be told, — comparatively tall in stature, 
fair of skin, long in face, scant of hair, high and thin 
nosed, — who made rapid and extended conquest of Japan, 
bringing the earlier invaders into subjection to themselves, 
and driving into the remote North the aboriginal Ainu. 
These conquerors were the last successful armed invaders 
of these islands. From the conquerors and conquered, 
gradually the Japanese people now known to the world 



1893 OEIGINS OF THE JAPANESE PEOPLE 463 

came into being. At the present day, only at the extremes 
of social gradation, — that is, among the nobility of most 
ancient lineage and in the menial coolie class, — are copies, 
I would better say, suggestions, of the original physical types 
preserved with any distinctness. 

The last invaders, in all probability, were the source of 
the forces under which the Japanese Empire as a social 
order was established, — that marvellous political organism 
which from times unknown has continued to operate, 
unchanged at its vital center, until in the age now present. 
For twenty-five centuries at least, it is claimed, one Im- 
perial dynasty has been supreme ; carried onward in a 
descent of legitimate rulers nowhere broken. Probably no 
insignificant agencies in preserving the ancient political 
order were the peculiar geographical isolation of the 
Japanese people and the undeveloped art of navigation in 
past ages ; but these agencies did not establish the unique 
order, or impart to it its distinguishing power. The empire 
of Japan was the effect of a mighty principle which 
became ascendant in prehistoric ages ; which never was 
degraded by revolt from among those upon whom it was 
imposed ; and which, until the years of our own genera- 
tion, never suffered violence from without. The founders 
of the Empire, in all probability, brought with them a 
religion in whose fundamental mythology lay the bond 
which has, all the centuries since, held people and rulers 
together. This, kept inviolate by geographical isolation 
and the natural mood of the people accepting it, has made 
the Imperial house of Japan the oldest now in the world, 
and altogether the longest dominant in human history. 
Whether this judgment be true or not, certain it is that 
when the records of Japan emerged into trustworthy 
history a little more than a thousand years ago, they dis- 
closed a people believing profoundly that at the head of 
their government was a Divinely descended being, — indeed 
a god, — in whose will lay their whole duty and hope. 

Fundamental to our present discussion is this fact. 
Emerging from prehistoric darkness, the Japanese people, 
we know, were unified by— and in all relations of life, 
political, social, and individual, directed by — the faith that 



464 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PART III 



in the person of their ruler was a divine being. Consequent 
upon this faith there had developed among them an 
unquestioning reverence for all the authorized traditions 
relating to the origin and career of the Imperial persons. 
All places with which the Imperial ancestors had been 
connected were reverenced and dealt with as holy. 
Japan was believed to be not only the land favored 
of the gods, but the sanctuary central in the universe. 
The celestial hosts, even, had devoted to it their strength, 
thereby glorifying the national past. The goddess of the 
sun was eminent among divine beings as direct source of 
the Imperial line ; and the creator of all worlds was the 
father of the Sun-goddess. In the Japanese mind no 
other peoples of the world could approach in dignity or 
privilege their own heritage and destiny. 

But what interests us chiefly in discussing our problem 
is not that this self-exaltation existed among the Japanese 
of the far past. Many other peoples have had a like faith 
and satisfaction. Such mood is natural in the early stages 
of social evolution. The important fact is that among the 
Japanese this confidence persisted along with the achieve- 
ment of one of the most complete civilizations known in 
the evolution of mankind ; and that this conviction con- 
tinued even into the present age, to be suddenly confront- 
ed with the matured science and philosophy and the alien 
institutions of America and Europe. Further, the mo- 
mentous disclosure is now made that, in contact with these, 
the ages-long conviction of the Japanese people is surely 
and swiftly going to destruction, and that in its fall the 
whole civil and social structure, which it has accompanied 
and has so long sustained, is imperilled. The present 
crisis, through the happenings of recent years, inevitably 
came. The development of the crisis could not be pre- 
vented when once the long maintained barriers around 
the Empire were broken down. The supreme question is 
therefore raised, How shall this people, in losing their 
faith in a present theocracy, and thereby in the bond of 
their civil order ; in the inspiration of their literature and 
art ; and in the basis of their ethics and religion ; accept 
safely modern self-government, the popular suffrage and 



1893 



WHAT IS JAPAN'S KELIGIOUS PROBLEM ? 



465 



representative parliament, the literature, art, and above 
all, the ethics and religion of the developing reason of in- 
dividual men? The problem of religion in Japan has 
become, therefore, a matter of great concern to any who 
care for the fate of this ancient empire of the Far East, 
and indeed, I may say, to all who care for the welfare of 
humankind. 

Let us understand this problem more fully. Japanese 
religion began, so far as we know, with what was named, 
when the first historical religious change among the people 
took place, Shinto, or the " Way of the Gods." Before 
the sixth Christian century, whatever there was of religion 
in Japan had its expression in worship of the reigning 
Emperor and his ancestors, and in an associated cult drawn 
from an aboriginal nature-worship, — personifications of 
the ocean, fire, storms, rivers, mountains, and other natural 
objects and phenomena. In Shinto there never was any 
definite moral code, apart from the Emperor's will. Out- 
side that the promptings of one's own nature were regard- 
ed as the rule of conduct. From the Imperial will natur- 
ally went forth, in the course of time, what became practi- 
cally an elaborate moral code ; but that, be it remembered, 
was always the Emperor's will. iVmong the ancient 
Japanese there was also faith in a life after death ; but 
that life was not connected with any doctrine concerning 
heavens and hells. Immortality, according to Shinto, had 
no relation to the good or evil men may do on the earth. 
As far as the middle of the Sixth Century of our era, then, 
this aboriginal religion afforded the sole range of spiritual 
and moral life in Japan. 

In our Sixth Century, however, a momentous change in 
the whole life of the people was initiated. The influence 
of China at that time began to make a deep impression 
upon the Japanese. Until then, there is much reason to 
conclude, the nation had been but little more than an 
aggregation, of varying inclusion, of semi-barbaric tribes, 
held together by allegiance to the chieftain for the time dom- 
inant in the family which they acknowledged as heaven- 
descended. Among the forces entering from China — 
forces the most revolutionary that Japan has ever felt, ex- 



466 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PART III 



cepting those now at work there — was the missionary 
religion of the Orient, the faith and cult of the Buddha. 

Buddhism appeared, through Korea, in our year 552, the 
avant-courier of the civilization of Eastern Asia. Not 
many years after the coming of the Buddhist missionaries, 
a native Prince Eegent was converted to the new faith, 
and became its effective patron. Priests and nuns in large 
numbers then made their way into the country. Splendid 
temples were built ; gorgeous religious services were institut- 
ed ; the populace were fascinated by glittering altars, by 
the magnificent robes of the priests, by the sonorous ritual 
and incense-clouds of the new worship ; they were over- 
powered ^by the eloquence and learning of the new preach- 
ers and teachers. The priests shrewdly adapting their 
doctrine to their learners, the Japanese soon saw their 
ancient pantheon transferred to the Buddhist divine realm. 
The Imperial traditions were accepted by, and made part 
of, the care of the guardians- of the new faith. Many of 
the most ancient gods of Shinto were proclaimed to be but 
the orthodox deities of India revealed under other names 
in Japan. The Imperial family itself at last gave allegi- 
ance to the foreign religion ; and thus, early in the Seventh 
Century, Buddhism became supreme as the guide of the 
people's faith and life. 

Along with the conquest of Japan by Buddhism, a 
change almost radical took place in the nation's political 
organization. The form of government, as the people 
became civilized, took shape for the most part in accord- 
ance with the model disclosed to them in the greater em- 
pire of China. Public affairs were divided into several de- 
partments and placed under Imperial ministers, to whom 
large powers were delegated. Moreover, the Emperors, 
with the ascendency of the new religion, began to with- 
draw at early ages from the active direction of the State. 
In theory the Emperors, desiring to devote themselves to 
divine meditation and to the enjoyment of their divine 
privileges free from worldly care, had called to office rep- 
resentatives clothed with wide-reaching authority. In fact, 
under the new regime the ancient autocracy disappeared, 
giving way to a mighty oligarchy operated in the Em- 



1393 



japan's sacred imperial tradition 



467 



perors' names, and by the force of the Imperial tradi- 
tion. 

By the middle of the Seventh Century Japan had been, 
as a whole, subjected to the new order of things, social, po- 
litical, and religious, initiated by the influences which had 
begun to act upon it a hundred years before. The chief 
Asiatic civilization of the time had done complete work. 
The Japanese people had been brought under control of 
the Buddhism of the North, which preserved for them, in 
the change, all that was necessary of the ancient native 
religion and Imperial traditions. New industries and the 
fine arts had been introduced and were flourishing. Litera- 
ture had been created, and had entered upon what is now 
regarded as a classical period. The form of government 
had become a bureaucracy, under which the Emperor had 
ceased to be active monarch,— his person withdrawn into 
a mysterious seclusion, from which it did not emerge for 
more than a thousand years, From that time, until 1868, 
the Japanese Empire continued always practically under 
the form which it then received. But oligarchy as it has 
been through the twelve centuries past, nothing occurred 
in the most critical events of the nation's history to loosen 
the bond which from time immemorial had held the polit- 
ical and social structure together. At the source of what- 
ever religious consciousness has at any time been possessed 
by the people of Japan, there has always been the one 
faith that the Mikado, heaven-descended, is God with man; 
the lord and present guardian of the nation; the agent of 
celestial favor for them above all other families of men ; the 
divine medium for their welfare in this world and in all 
ages. The Confucian philosophy, which present but 
dormant for centuries previously, was started into wide- 
spreading activity about three hundred years ago, and 
which until recently prevailed among the scholarly Japan- 
ese, did nothing to weaken the oligarchic form, of govern- 
ment, or the ancient principle of Shinto, the divine origin 
and authority of the Mikado. On the contrary, Confu- 
cianism, with its fundamental tenets of unquestioning 
submission to parents and rulers, and its indifference to 
speculation on theological matters, only strengthened the 



468 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PART III 



traditional bond between the invisible Emperor and his 
people. Indeed, it did much to perpetuate among the 
masses the religious sentiment which, during the preced- 
ing eight hundred years of Buddhist domination, had been 
wrought by ritual, sermon, and scripture but more and 
more deeply into the popular consciousness. 

Thus, be it noticed, in the whole career of the Japanese 
people, from the earliest times down to the middle of the 
present century, through all the changes which befell 
them, — by the incoming of the religion of the Buddha; by 
the incursion of Chinese civilization ; by the transition of 
government from an Imperial autocracy to the rule of an 
oligarchy; through the struggles of rival clans ambitious of 
the seat of power and of possession of the Emperor's divine 
person ; through the rise and overthrow of the many great 
men, the Shoguns, who for more than six centuries were 
the practical autocrats of the empire; through the dominion 
in scholarly Japan of the philosophy of Confucius, — 
through the worldng of all these influences, be it remem- 
bered, the primeval principle remained supreme, — profess- 
edly supreme even among the members of the dominant 
oligarchies, and really supreme among the masses of the 
people, — that the Mikado came from a divine ancestry, that 
he is girded with divine authority, and is the absolute lord, 
spiritual and temporal, of the Empire. Even to-day, when 
official Japan, in the papers of State, which are laid before 
the governments of the outer world, styles its ruler 
" Emperor," the popular speech always terms him the 
" Son of Heaven." 

But the changes w 7 hich have been taking place in the 
present generation are the effect of forces far different from 
those that were active in the farther past. To dull percep- 
tions even, these are fraught with consequences such as 
had never before been felt, or even imagined. Shinto, 
Buddhism, and Confucianism have hardly anything in 
common with the powers directing the Nineteenth Century. 
Science and modern philosophy have passed through the 
gates which were forced open by the American Expedition 
of forty years ago. These, with the individualistic ration- 
alism; the democratic political aims and achievements; the 



1893 



THE IMPENDING PEEIL IN JAPAN 



469 



internationalism of commerce, letters, and arts ; the ideal 
ethics, and the religious humanitarianism of Europe and 
America, — these have confronted, with inevitable antagon- 
ism, the institutions of that Far Eastern civilization, and 
have met, with no sheltering shield before it, the popular 
faith in the Mikado as the " Son of Heaven." 

A like spectacle mankind have never before witnessed. 
For two hundred and fifty years the Japanese people had 
had no intercourse whatever with the rest of the world ; 
and prior to that time there had been no international 
intercourse for them beyond Asia, excepting in the tragic 
seventy-five years from 1549 to 1624, when Portuguese 
and Spaniards by their alien religious teachings had so 
aroused the self-preservative instincts of the subjects of the 
" Son of Heaven " that these arose, and in fire and blood 
destroyed the treason into which Jesuit, Dominican, 
and Franciscan had betrayed many of their fellows. The 
present invasion from the West, however, is wholly unlike 
that which was repulsed at the opening of the Seventeenth 
Century. Then, faith was arrayed against faith ; patriotism 
against patriotism ; " the Vicar of Christ " against " the Son 
of Heaven." Forty years ago the guardians at the gates of 
Japan had not physical force sufficient to repel the new 
Western assailants. Then science met faith ; internation- 
alism confronted patriotism ; allegiance to Pope, Mikado, 
or any other ruler upon earth had nothing to do with the 
exactions of Commodore Perry and his followers. A new 
age for Japan, wholly unlike the ages of the past, was 
necessarily inaugurated when the Commodore of the Amer- 
ican fleet entered the Bay of Yedo and declared that 
J apan must come into intercourse with the rest of mankind. 

This new age appeared in 1854. What has it done for 
the people upon whom it was forced ? The unique politi- 
cal and social order which had been developing through 
the many centuries, and which had been practically per- 
fected under the Tokugawas, the last dynasty of the Sho- 
guns, — this, I answer, has lost through this new age its 
ancient bond, is rapidly disintegrating, and soon will be in 
visible ruin. Twenty-five years ago the Mikado was de- 
livered from his seclusion in the palace at Kyoto, and re- 



470 THE JAPAN UNITAKIAN MISSION PART III 



stored, seemingly, to the absolute monarchy of ancient 
times. In fact, however, the restoration was only the 
sudden rise to power of the great Southern clans of Satsu- 
ma and Choshiu in the name of the Mikado, and by 
means of the uplift of the anti-foreign sentiment which 
had been aroused throughout the nation at sight of 
the submission of the Shogun to the demands of the out- 
side barbarians. The weakness of the northern Shogunate 
was but the opportunity of foes in the south, The South- 
ern daimiates rebelled, overthrew the Shogun, and brought 
the Emperor forward, apparently to resume, after more 
than ten centuries of retirement, the direction of the State. 

Yet, as after events made clear, these very champions of 
the divine authority of the Emperor and of the old politi- 
cal order soon became actively the responsible agents in 
developing the present age, an era far more revolutionary 
of the past than anything allowed by the Shogunate had 
been. Once well in power, the ministry of the restored' 
Mikado, and in the name of the Mikado, determined to 
accept for the nation the political, commercial, industrial, 
social, educational, and other aims and methods of the 
aggressive civilization of America and Europe. The re- 
stored Imperial reign was named the age of Meiji, or " En- 
lightened Peace." But alas ! for the hopes of sincere believers 
in the faith which had created and sustained Japan through 
thousands of years as u the Empire of the Gods," if, when 
they opened the land to the inworking of the new age they 
thought that New and Old could thus come together without 
disastrous feud. The Emperor, or rather his ministry in the 
name of the divine Imperial authority, could grant to the 
people a constitution, a parliament, popular suffrage, schools 
for the teaching and development of science, newspapers 
for the masses, visibility and access to the Imperial pre- 
sence ; but as any one of us can see, this could not be done 
without at the same time laying the ancient divine author- 
ity upon an altar for sacrifice by the very forces thus 
called into being. 

There is no more pathetic act in the history of 
nations than this unconscious movement to self-destruc- 
tion by 6t the Divine Imperialism " of Japan. With the 



1S93 



japan's new popular consciousness 471 



giving of the constitution the Emperor was forever divest- 
ed of any claim to absolute power. Witb the establish- 
ment of a Parliament the direction of the government con- 
fessedly became thenceforward a resultant of the conflicts 
of parties. During the three years in which the Japanese 
Parliament has had existence a continually renewed 
struggle has been going on between conservative and pro- 
gressionist, to the increasing advantage of the latter, over 
the question, Shall the Imperial ministers be responsible 
for their policy and even their existence to the Parliament ? 
With popular suffrage a new consciousness of independence 
and personal power has been awakened among the people. 
In the schools now omnipresent in the Empire, scientific 
astronomy, geography, geology, chemistry, critical history 
and literature and philosophy are daily obliterating from 
the minds of the common people faith in their long-rever- 
ed mythology and the Imperial tradition. The fundament- 
al political, social, industrial, and other questions of modern 
mankind are set forth and discussed in the columns of 
hundreds of daily newspapers, of magazines, of pamphlets, 
and books, which are read even among the lowly coolies. 
The people know that the grave-faced gentleman who 
often rides along the streets of Tokvo with gracious re- 
cognition of reverent spectators ; who frequently takes part 
in army and navy manoeuvres ; who presides at festival 
banquents, great and small, and who even diverts himself 
at the race-course of the foreigners at Yokohama, — the 
people well know that this man is not at all ''the god" who 
inspired the worship of millions among themselves less 
than fifty year ago. To this consciousness have the sub- 
jects of the ancient " Empire of the Son of Heaven " now 
come. Those who think at all upon the facts of which I 
speak will understand that the whole structure in which 
this ancient empire was embodied is being wrought upon 
by the forces of the new age to its ruin. 

In this New Age, the age of Meiji, what has befallen 
morality and religion ? Much that was not looked for 
when the new era appeared. One of the earliest acts 
under the reign which the " Son of Heaven " had resum- 
ed was a resolute attempt to make of the empire what it 



472 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PART III 



had been in the most ancient past, — "the land of the 
gods/' To this end it deprived the popular but imported 
religion, Buddhism, of the State favor it had enjoyed. 
"Pure Shinto" must be restored to the whole people with the 
restoration of the Mikado to the visible throne. From 
1871 to 1874, therefore, the forces of the government were 
employed in disestablishing Buddhism; confiscating for the 
new uses the ancient shrines which had fallen under Bud- 
dhist control, together with their sources of revenue ; and 
in bringing the Shinto temples and ritual anew into 
popular favor. But the power of the New Age had, even 
at that time, carried the people beyond the will of men, 
however exalted. No subject of Japan would have dis- 
obeyed a direct command from the Emperor ; but in the 
acts recognized as really those of his ministers, there was 
not authority enough to compel popular faith or conduct. 
Buddhism had lost vital stimulus for its adherents ; and, in 
losing governmental support, it fell, never again to rise, 
however much it might struggle for a footing. Confucian- 
ism was involved in the civil and social convulsion which 
had shattered the ancient institutions of the nation ; also 
Shinto — except as the vehicle of the Imperial Tradition, 
which itself was soon to be retained but as a tradition — ■ 
was quickly acknowledged to be gone from among the 
convictions directing popular thought. Only twenty years 
ago, so far as the former supports are concerned, morality 
and religion in Japan were pitiably in want. Habits de- 
veloped in past ages chiefly upheld them. So far as 
ancient influences are to be considered, this inherited 
force has been for the last two decades the only positive 
agent which has withheld Japan from moral chaos. 

All the while, too, Modern Civilization has steadily been 
going farther and deeper into the social structure and life. 
It is'impossible here to tell the story of this advance of the 
New upon the Old ; but you can easily see how surely the 
one great conviction from which Japan has hitherto drawn 
its strength has weakened, and will soon be wholly power- 
less. You can see, I mean, how certainly, as a vital force, 
belief in " the divine origin and power " of the Emperor 
will soon perish. Thereby, you also easily understand how 



1893 HOW SOLVE JAPAN'S GEEAT PROBLEM? 473 



inevitably the old inspiration to religion and the old sanc- 
tion for morals are soon to become things of the past. 
To-day whatever was characteristic of old Japan, if 
opposed by the science and philosophy of the new age, is 
already impotent. These, full-armed, have taken in- 
expugnable possession of the avenues along which Japan 
must hereafter move. The tradition of a " divine dynasty/' 
with all that is involved in it, must sooner or later lose 
wholly its now steadly decreasing momentum. 

In view, then, of what has taken place in the New Age, 
evidently a momentous problem for the Japanese people 
has arisen concerning Ethics and Religion. Without trust- 
ed ethical leadership their national future is certainly 
charged with fatal peril ; and without religious sanction I 
believe that no code of ethics can be made a strong or 
permanent guide. What, therefore, shall be done with 
the problem ? Shall the Japanese be left to themselves, to 
find deliverance as best they may ; or, shall those who 
think they can help them go and try to serve them in 
their need ? 

We are not called upon to answer these last questions. 
The answers have already been made. Some Japanese 
have sought to find for themselves the needed help. 
Many earnest men and women from foreign lands, bearers 
of various remedies for the healing of nations, have 
hastened to the imperilled people to aid, if aid they may. 
The Utilitarian Ethics of Europe and America, endorsed 
as the best result of modern science and philosophy, has 
been carried to Japan, and is widely studied by many 
there, that they may discover in it the way to social safetj^ 
and progress. Large numbers of the educated classes 
are now hoping that the so-called scientific ethics of the 
West can be put into the place which Confucianism may 
no longer fill. Then Christianity — Roman Catholic and 
Orthodox Protestant — has entered the country wherever 
openings were found, and has offered guides, in the forms 
of a " Divine Church " and a " Divine Book," as infallible 
leaders into paths of civil and social security. And Religious 
Rationalism has also been taken to the confused nation, — 
its messengers bearing whatever pertinent knowledge they 



474 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PART III 



have received through science and philosophy; yet holding, 
as complementary to their knowledge, their faith in the ideas 
and ideals of Religion. With this two-fold help they hope 
that this people may be guided through their present peril 
unharmed. 

Now, taking under judgment these various offered solu- 
tions of the problem we are dealing with, I am led to 
believe that Rationalized Eeligion only can really serve the 
Japanese people. Merely Utilitarian Ethics, associated as 
it is with the Agnostic Philosophy of our times, does not 
put this people into a position practically other than that 
in which they were left by the loss of their inherited faith. 
It discloses no moral law as essential in human nature. 
It opens up no range for what we know should be a 
directing function of man's life, — spiritual idealization. 
Let a nation become utilitarian in morals and practically 
agnostic of the objects of religion, and its prospect for 
social harmony and progress is poor indeed. " By the 
soul the nations shall be great and free/' 

I cannot believe, from what I see, that any earth-bound 
and short- visioned practice, such as must follow the Agnostic 
Utilitarianism aimed at by some prophets of social welfare 
now prominent in Europe and America, will ever satisfy, 
or indeed long hold the allegiance of, this aspiring people 
of the Far East. Nor, I must also believe, has Christian- 
ity, as offered by the Church of Eome, or as taught by the 
missionaries of Orthodox Protestantism, a wide-spreading 
career before it in Japan. Rather than accept the Pope 
of Rome as the " Vicar of the God-Christ," to dictate for 
them their social, ethical, religious life, the Japanese, I 
am sure, would always continue to submit to their own 
Emperor as a "God." They have been forced to believe that 
the Emperor is a man ; but with the sublime belief of their 
ancestors still dear in memory, they surely will not let any 
alien Monarch take the sacred place which in their own 
sanctuary they have seen vacated. Such act would be in 
the Japanese imagination the most terrible outrage the na- 
tion could suffer. It was not much more than an intima- 
tion of such usurpation as a coming event that caused the 
expulsion of the Roman Catholics from Japan in the 



1893 CHBISTIAN ORTHODOXY INADEQUATE 475 



Seventeenth Century and induced the Government of that 
time to shut up the land against the whole outer world. 
"The Vicar of Christ" may not ascend the throne of 
" the Son of Heaven." 

And hardly any better than the prospect of the 
Church of Borne in the " Empire of the Eising Sun," 
is the outlook for Christian Orthodoxy, — I mean for 
the Creeds of the Churches of the Protestant Beform- 
ation. To the educated classes of Japan, not only 
are the Orthodox Christian doctrines which set forth the 
total depravity and ruin of human nature ; the way of sal- 
vation from eternal suffering by reception of Divine favor 
secured through "the atoning blood-sacrifice of God's Son 
on Calvary and the eternity of conscious human life in 
heaven or in hell, — not only are these and associated 
doctrines considered to be no advance upon the specula- 
tions of the Buddha, which declare existence itself to be 
an evil ; which point out the way of salvation through gain 
of personal purity and in increasing freedom from ignor- 
ance and the illusions of life, until everlasting peace is 
obtained in the desireless, passionless Nirvana ; but the 
Christian doctrines are judged to be even far below in 
philosophic worth and moral stimulus those which came 
from India. 

More than this, most Japanese, as they have learned 
Christianity, believe its doctrines to be, fundamentally, 
morally inferior to their inherited faiths. For example, 
the injunction, " Leave even father and mother for 
Christ's sake" strikes at the very source of the bond of 
Japanese society. Filial obedience and loyalty, — which in 
Japan are, we might say, interdependent principles, 
mutually including and inclusive, — the Japanese cannot 
imagine weakened or powerless without consequent social 
disintegration and death. Yet further, the Japanese as a 
nation, having become in recent times rationalistic to an 
extraordinary degree, can no more easily now accept, 
as infallible, the Bible which contains the cosmogony 
related in the Book of Genesis ; and the contra-natural 
records preserved in many places in it, from the primitive 
anthropomorphism of the Garden of Eden and the Deluge 



476 THE JAPAN UNITABIAN MISSION PART III 



to the miracles connected with the birth and death of 
Jesus ; than they can longer believe in the cosmogony and 
theocratic Imperialism transmitted to them in their own 
national traditions. Merely as an observer of the intel- 
lectual and spiritual development of mankind, I must say 
that the outlook in Japan for Orthodox Christianity, as 
a national influence, is hopeless. Its rise to dominion over 
the people is necessarily estopped by its uncompromisable 
conflict with modern science. I do not mean that Christ- 
ianity bearing the name Orthodox may not have a wide 
sway in Japan. Sufficiently rationalized, — and among 
Japanese Christians belief, at present in large measure, 
takes form as Liberal Orthodoxy, — Christianity may do 
much in guiding multitudes into a helpful faith and life. 

My conclusion is, therefore, that only in religion rationally 
conceived and harmoniously associated with man's grow- 
ing knowledge, — only here, if anywhere, lies the way by 
which the religious problem in Japan may be solved. 
Under the guidance of rationalized religion the Japanese 
would not be summoned before an external authority ; 
they would not be confronted with ecclesiastical or con- 
fessional tradition which they should be required to accept 
without knowing whether or not it had been transmitted 
to its bearers under unquestionable sanction. Offered a 
rationalized religion, they need only the witnessings of their 
native spiritual consciousness, complementing demon- 
strable knowledge, to enable them to decide whether or 
not the doctrine is true. Here, then, lies hope. The 
problem before us, if solvable at all, can be solved, I am 
persuaded, only by those who can convince the Japanese 
people, in the presence of that which man knows, by the 
co-operation of the instincts and needs native to the indi- 
vidual soul, of the reality and worth of the fundamental 
ideas of religion,— God, the Soul, and Duty. Do not 
think, however, that I believe this hope can be speedily or 
easily carried to fruition. Far from it ! The Japanese 
have not been a religious people in the high sense in which 
we conceive the words. I do not think that at any time 
in their history they have had what we would call an 
exalted soul-consciousness ; a sense of the ideals we 



1893 A BATTONALIZED BELIGION NECESSARY 477 



name spiritual ; a personal possession by that Presence 
which filled the vision of Isaiah and Plato, and Shelley 
and Wordsworth. They have never apprehended one 
infinite and eternal Being as omnipotent, omnipresent 
Power, Mind, or Holy Spirit, — the Source, Guide, and 
Providence of the Universe. Shinto never taught them 
that ; Buddhism ignored such consciousness ; Confucian- 
ism had nothing to do with. Nor has ethics appeared to 
them as dependent upon a law of right immanent in the 
nature of things ; as part of the method by which Humanity 
is evolved and perfected. Also the sense of personality 
has not been, with them, that of a real individual, persis- 
tent through all changes, surviving, as a spiritual unit, the 
dissolution of the body. In this meaning of the words I do 
not think the Japanese have ever been a religious people. 
They have risen no higher in their thought of God than 
personifications of the localized powers and events of 
Nature ; and glorified apotheoses of their Emperors, heroes, 
and sages. Their ethics have been rules of conduct which 
had no relations separate from purely practical and utili- 
tarian personal interest, except as modified by Imperial 
decree. Of course I generalize broadly. However, these 
are, in the main, the facts which have been characteristic 
of the history of religion and ethics among the Japanese. 
Naturally they make reception of the faith, which I have 
set forth as the way out of the perils which now threaten 
the people, very difficult. Yet, difficult though the work 
needed in their behalf may be, I repeat my confidence 
that if the religious problem which has been raised for 
them by the revolutionary new age into which they have 
been forced is to be solved at all, it can be solved only by 
those who may be enabled to arouse in them through their 
native spiritual faculties the higher religious consciousness, 
in connection with what growing science has taught. 

To illustrate : if we could make clear to the many earnest 
young Japanese scholars who in recent years have found a 
large measure of satisfaction in " the Doctrine of Evolution," 
— Spencerism may almost be named the gospel of the mod- 
ern Japanese intellect, — if to these earnest evolutionists it 
could be made clear that Mr. Spencer really emphasizes the 



478 THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PART III 



ultimate God-consciousness in his " Doctrine of the Unknow- 
able/' the path to a realm of faith and aspiration hitherto 
untraversed in Japan would be opened. The Japanese 
have not as yet begun to perceive the implications of the 
datum fundamental in the philosophy of the European 
thinker whom at present they admire most, and whose 
words they most frequently repeat. Further, if such all- 
inclusive generalizations as unity, order, progress, wisdom, 
which are necessary to "the Doctrine of Evolution, " could 
be made to appear to them as but signs of the methods by 
which God directs the course of the Universe, a wholly 
new ethical theory would thereby be made possible. Thus 
advancing through science and the philosophy of science to 
an essential Theism, the way would grow clearer for an 
approach to the sublime doctrine, vital in the religion of 
the West, — the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of 
Man. These doctrines once made clear, as legitimate in- 
ferences from the best knowledge man has gained, the 
way would lie open for a confident emphasis of the 
supreme worth of "the law cf love" as it was taught and 
shown in the lives of the Christ and his fellow-prophets 
who have pointed mankind to this as the law by which 
they should live in order to reach perfected human welfare. 
Those who would rescue Japan from the dangers which 
have come through the sudden breaking up of the ancient 
faith and institutions of its people by the conquering 
civilization of America and Europe, I therefore believe, 
can do nothing better than appeal from knowledge, and 
their own faith through knowledge, directly to the soul. 
If the soul of this people of the far East can once be really 
aroused, in Japan as here, many will acknowledge and 
seek to realize the Divine Ideals which have for ages shone 
before humanity, and which are at last to lead mankind to 
sublimer heights of truth, goodness, and beauty than can 
now be even imagined. 

Bat why is it your and my duty to take upon ourselves 
the long and arduous task of which I speak ? I am asking 
you, who see the poverty and peril in human life bereft of 
religion, and who believe in the natural power of the 
human soul to apprehend God and to develop divine life. 



1S93 



THE DUTY TO MEET THIS NEED 



479 



Surely, we should do more hesitate to go to the help of a 
nation endangered as is Japan than we should hesitate to 
succor it were it stricken with physical famine. Moreover, 
when we remember that it was we of the West — yes, we 
of these United States — who sent war-ships across the 
ocean, and by our superior physical force broke away the 
barriers which that people had erected two hundred and 
fifty years before, against the invaders from Southern Europe 
who sought to destroy the political and social structure 
then existing, our responsibility becomes definite and direct. 
Not the Japanese, but we, the people of the United States, 
are they who overthrew that Empire's defenses and let in 
the hosts before which the Mikado as the " Son of 
Heaven " lost celestial authority, and which thereby ex- 
posed the whole social order, dependent upon that authority, 
to destruction. Having compelled this crisis, so long as 
the word " Humanity " is a higher word to us than 
" American," our duty certainly lies in our doing the best 
in our power to save this people from graver consequences ; 
and especially so to serve them in their perplexity over the 
greatest of all their problems, Religion, that they may find 
prosperity and peace. 

This is my answer to our question. In accordance with 
this answer the Unitarian Mission to Japan has been 
organized and is at work. I have not the time now, nor 
is this the place, to describe in detail just what the Mission 
has done, and what special signs of welcome and of 
promise have met its efforts. These things have been 
fully set forth in our reports, published by the American 
Unitarian Association and in the columns of our periodi- 
cals. But I may say here, in general, that gradually the 
Japanese are becoming convinced that among the foreign 
religious organizations which have offered them their 
services, the Unitarians are typical rationalists, and are sin- 
cerely seeking to learn only what is true concerning the 
high interests of Ethics and Religion ; and to devote such 
truth to the service of the people, Naturally, we have not, 
as a Mission, been accepted as the nation's guide. Unit- 
arianisn}, as an organization so named, may never direct 



480 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PART III 



the religious life of Japan. Yet, I am confident that our 
Mission, together with — I dare claim — the missions of the 
Universalists and the German Evangelists, are distinctively 
prophetic of an era for the Japanese people as yet un- 
known, — an age of deep spiritual awakening; of a rational 
and scientific illumination; of the life of the soul; of an age of 
the development of a real and full God- consciousness and 
of the recognition of an ethical sense, dependent not 
upon varying pleasure or utility, but upon a law of right 
essential in human nature and disclosed as becoming domi- 
nant in the course of human life. With this confidence 
steadily growing stronger, the work in Japan has become a 
privilege and an inspiration to me and to those who work 
with me. A more important office, a service to human kind 
grander in possibilities or more welcome, as these become 
clearer, I cannot imagine. Face to face with the score of 
young men who through the past year have listened to the 
message of the teachers in our " School of Liberal Theolo- 
gy;" young men in some of whom, I know, a soul-life has 
been aroused kindred to that which you, heirs of the faith of 
the Hebrew prophets and of the Christ, have received, I 
see possible apostles who may do — who can tell in what 
splendid measure ? — uplifting service to the people of whom 
they have been born. In our magazine, and in our books 
and pamphlets we have labored under the conviction that 
we are taking part in guarding an empire from disaster. 
We cannot speak word to ear with the hosts who surround 
us, but the messengers we send forth in our stead are 
urged to bear high in memory the charge that they are 
sent to lead their people into the way made safe and grand 
by faith in God and by the growing power of the soul. 

Our work all around is difficult — it bears continually upon 
brain and heart ; but it is, for all that, sublime and unfail- 
ing in inspiration. I am even bold enough to say that the 
American Unitarians have undertaken nothing of greater 
importance, considered in all its relations, than just this 
Mission to the people of Japan. Far larger is it in its 
scope than any mission you have made to any place, or for 
any place, or for any interest in this land ; it includes an 
empire. In a sense, more important is it than any mission 



1897 



SIGNS OF PROMISE IN JAPAN 



481 



you might establish among peoples whose heritage has 
been Christian; and who have breathed an atmosphere of 
science, high philosophy, and religion their lives through- 
out. Moreover, as I have said, this Mission is eminently 
your duty ; imposed upon you, whose own kindred broke 
down the nation's defences and laid the people open to the 
iconoclastic invasion of the spirit of the present age. 

I therefore submit to your judgment this answer to the 
question in my theme ; and my plea for the support of those 
who are giving of the best they have to realize this answer 
in a people's thought and life A religious problem of 
vital moment has been forced upon Japan. Let the solu- 
tion of this problem here offered be allowed a free and full 
trial, I plead. Do not allow it as your duty merely : — see, 
indeed, a splendid privilege for you in being enabled to 
give this service to our fellow-men in their need. 



II. 

In June 1897, I published in the Christian Register of 
Boston the following report, previously read to the annual 
meeting of the American Unitarian Association. It contains 
a measurably adequate record, in general, of the history of 
the doings of the Unitarian Mission through the years 
since I had delivered the foregoing lecture on Japan's 
Religious Problem. 

Signs of Promise in Japan. 

After an absence of four years, I welcome with great 
pleasure this privilege of making to you in person my report 
as your representative among the people of Japan. During 
these four years my work has been done in association with 
a series of events among the most important happening in 
this most notable epoch of Japan's history. In these years 
the Japanese people have been subjected to what is, 
practically, a new national consciousness. 

Three years ago they passed through a successful war 
with the Chinese, in old times their guide in religion, 



482 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PART III 



morals, law, science, and art ; and from their victories 
they secured large accessions of territory and treasure, and 
awoke to a grand sense of power, of opportunity, and of 
possession of complete international right. At the same time, 
this exalted national mood was put under severe restraint 
by a mandate from some of the Great Powers of Europe 
forbidding to them their expected enjoyment of the spoils 
of their victory ; specifically compelling them to resign their 
occupancy of the Liautong Peninsula of China and their 
protectorate of the Korean Kingdom. Yet, ministering to 
their self-satisfaction during this eventful time, the chief 
longing of the people, cherished and seeking gratification 
for twenty years and more, — that is, the revision of the 
treaties forced upon them by the fleets of America and of 
Europe forty years ago, — was realized, and the brand of 
inferiority among nations, indeed of political impotence, 
was effaced. Through the new treaties which are to come 
into operation within two years, the Japanese will at last 
attain to an international dignity and responsibility like 
that possessed by any of the world's Powers. The reproach 
of extra-territoriality, or the legal independence of the foreign 
resident in Japan, will be finally removed ; the full privilege 
of participating in international counsellings will be 
secured ; and the shame of being ignored and despised as 
' ' Asiatics " and ' ' Mongols " will have disappeared. In 
consequence of this altered relationship of Japan to the 
acknowledged Great Powers, the Japanese people, with 
assured self-confidence, have been moved by new and 
wide- reaching ambitions. Now, they are confident, 
their country will soon be accepted as a member of the 
supreme alliance among nations, sharing privileges and 
responsibilities that are as large as the globe. Their own 
future development is to be carried forward in connection 
with a really reciprocal international intercourse. In a 
word, among the Japanese people, within the past four 
years, a world-sense has become strong and dominant. 

Then, a further development of the immediate past in 
Japan is the near approach to self-government the people 
have made. Last year the struggle for party supremacy, 
unceasing throughout the seven years in which there has 



1897 



NEW POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC LIFE 



4 S3 



been an Imperial Parliament, came to an end in the 
triumph of the party that has been agitating in the 
interests of democracy. Henceforward, the Imperial 
ministry will not change with the varying successes of the 
factions in the oligarchy that has hitherto been the adviser 
and director of the Emperor's will ; but it is to take power, or 
resign it, as one or another great popular party may be in 
control in the Parliament. It is difficult to measure the 
meaning of this political revolution. But one can see in it 
that the last of the old autocratic regime, the reign of the 
clans and of hereditary nobles, is gone, and that the day 
of the common people has come. 

***** 

Too much was claimed in the above paragraph. The 
movement in favor of party government had been actually 
begun then. But the later oligarchic resistance was so 
strong that only in very recent years can it be said that 
party government has become a regulative political factor 
in the Empire. 

* * * * * 

Again, as a natural accompaniment of this progress in 
their politics, the Japanese have felt the beginnings of a 
new economic life. Industrially and commercially, during 
the past four years, this new life has impelled the people 
toward ventures of a magnitude and scope such as were 
never before attempted, probably not even thought possible- 
The great cities, like Tokyo and Osaka, have become busy 
manufacturing centers. Within a few years, as seen from 
heights near by, their look has wonderfully changed. The 
low roof-lines, seen only a decade ago, topped here and 
there by temple and pagoda, are now broken everywhere 
by tall chimneys, rising over cotton and silk mills and 
various sorts of other factories; while clouds of coal smoke 
darken the air which was almost clean even in my 
memory of seven years. Out in the country everywhere 
are increased acreages of rice, wheat, barley, maize, and 
other grains. Even the mountain uplands are beginning 
to give way to the spade and the plough. 



484 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PABT III 



Then, you all know how in commerce the new spirit has 
begun to seek a world-wide reach. Steamship lines have 
not only been put into operation to monopolize the coast- 
wise trade ; but in near and far Asia, even in Europe, 
in Australia, and in our own domain, already " the Flag 
of the Rising Sun " may be seen ; the advance standard 
of coming fleets, if the new Japanese will can have its 
way. Some banks of Japan have recently spread their 
branches into some of the great financial centres of 
Europe and America. Japanese chambers of commerce, 
boards of trade, and agricultural exchanges, are system- 
atizing and expanding the country's production, manu- 
facture, and home and foreign commercial distribution. 
The last significant international venture of the new 
Japan has been the ranging of its financial operations 
alongside those of London, Berlin, Paris, and New York, 
by the adoption of a gold standard, to be in force from the 
autumn of the present year. 

Yet more to be noted here as sign of the new national 
consciousness, is the general social transformation taking 
place. Expansion and diffusion of intelligence go on with 
increased speed. Book making and buying is one of the 
commonest effects of this factor in the popular change. On 
the streets of Tokyo, book- stalls abound and flourish, 
even more than in Boston. The books on sale, deal 
chiefly with the writings and things of Occidental 
lands. Much that one finds in print, moreover, is in 
the English language, — now the prevailing foreign lan- 
guage in the office, school, and shop. The science, art, 
and letters, and the political and social theorizing and 
experimenting of Western peoples are thereby fast finding 
way into the thinking of the populace. Besides, the 
domestic habits of the common folk are undergoing im- 
portant modifications. The grade of household living is 
rising. Ordinary laborers and servants are all receiving 
increased wages. Hitherto unknown needs are felt in the 
homes, and new expenditures are dared. The simplicity 
of family life, — so much praised by observers in former 
years, — is fast disappearing, giving way to a complex com- 
fort and luxury. A marked present tendency in the social 



1897 SOCIAL CHANGE I RELIGIOUS UNREST 485 



economy of Japan is to engender as troublesome and as 
dissatisfying a social mood and habit as that which we 
people of the West have brought upon ourselves. 

Noticeable, too, is the unrest and often struggle that 
have of late appeared in some of the most powerful and 
wide-spread religious organizations. For years now, some 
of the Buddhist sects have been disturbed because of dis- 
sensions occasioned by awakings among them to new 
thought and to new desire, compelled by the new spirit 
that is abroad and leaves nothing it can affect untouched. 
Buddhist reform literature has increased to an extent 
seriously formidable to the Buddhism of ancient tradition. 
The officers of such important sects as the Jodo and the 
Shingon have lately been invoking governmental interfer- 
ence to quiet the troubles among them started and 
continued by malcontents, new-light men, and zealous 
reformers. During the winter just past, the most w T idely ex- 
tended sect of all, the Shingon, — whose abbot, an Imperial 
descendant, is the Japanese pope, — has attracted to itself the 
attention of the empire on account of an almost successful 
radical reform agitation that has been disturbing it from 
the throne to the temple threshold. Eeligiously, Japan is 
no longer quiescent, content with ages-long-held traditions. 
A life hitherto unfelt is astir in Shintoism and Buddhism ; 
as w T ell as in the home, in the market-place, in the factory 
and shop, in the Parliament, and even within the sacred 
precincts of the Imperial court. 

In close contact with, — indeed often in intimate interac- 
tion w r ith, — this new vital force and movement, the Mission 
of the American Unitarian Association has been at work. 

1. How the Mission has been equipped for its service, 
I suppose you know well ; but, as a matter of fresh record, 
let me recall here the agencies at our command. 

Three years ago we completed and occupied Yuiitzu- 
kwan (Unity Hall) as the headquarters of our Mission ; an 
attractive and commodious building, itself a commendation 
of the things we attempt to do. The Hall stands on a 
generous lot of ground on one of the chief thoroughfares of 
Tokyo, and is generally admired for an exceptionally good 
architectural effect. Within, it is much praised for 



486 



THE JAPAN UNITAKIAN MISSION PART III 



liberality and convenience, and for the taste and simplicity 
of its furnishings. All the agencies of the Mission are now 
located in this hall. 

There the Japan Unitarian Association has its offices. 
This association was organized and is officered wholly by 
the Japanese. Its work for the present consists chiefly in the 
conduct of a large correspondence, meeting and counselling 
with many inquiring visitors, advising and serving its 
inland agents, and, in general, in maintaining an oversight 
of the varied movements of the religious thought and life 
of the Empire through literature and common popular 
report. Mr. Saichiro Kanda is the acting secretary of 
the association. In the assembly room of the Hall each 
Sunday and once during the week, the First Unitarian 
Church of Tokyo has its meetings. Mr. Jitsunen Saji, 
descendant of many generations of Buddhist priests, is at 
present pastor of this church. 

Unity Hall holds also the office of your Mission's 
magazine, Slinky o (Eeligion), a monthly publication de- 
voted to a free but reverent discussion of religion, ethics and 
social science, — in fact, of all matters bearing upon tha 
development of the higher life of the Japanese people. 
Mr. Nobuta Kishimoto, a graduate of Harvard Divinity 
School, well known to some among you and to readers 
of the New World, is ShuJcyd's editor. 

In the Hall is also our Department of General 
Publication, under whose charge translations of pamph- 
lets and books are made, and the distribution of the 
Mission's literature is supervised. In our storerooms 
we have good stocks of the best literature that we 
have judged could be made useful in our important 
work. It includes in the Japanese language, besides quite 
a number of bound volumes of our magazine, a " Service 
Book" for church worship, prepared by H. W. Hawkes 
of England ; Dr. Clarke's " Steps of Belief"; Dr. Bixby's 
" Crisis in Morals"; Dr. Pfleiderer's "Essence of Christian- 
ity "; Kanamori's " Present and Future of Christianity 
in Japan "; Saji's " Three Addresses on Eeligion "; and 
the Unity pamphlets on "Channing," on " Parker," on 
" Emerson," and on " Martineau." Less in size than the 



* 




1597 SPECIALIZATION OF THE MISSION WORK 487 



books just named are A. M. Knapp's " Unitarian Prin- 
ciples "; " The God of Evolution," by Dr. M. J. Savage ; 
" Jesus Christ/' by H. W. Hawkes ; " Life of the Bible " 
and also " Unitarianism a Promise," by W. C. Gannett ; 
also, by Clay MacCauley, are the "Threefold Standard of 
Unitarianism," "In what Sense are Unitarians Christian? 
" The Fellowship of Religions," " Christianity in History," 
and " The Present Dangers and Needs of Japan." We 
have too, several issues of the Japanese " Unitarian Year 
Book," by Mr. Kanda and Clay MacCauley, and a 
" Declaration of the Principles " and the l< Constitution of 
the Japan Unitarian Church" by a committee of the 
church. With these publications, all in the Japanese 
language, we have quite a number of copies of the 
American Unitarian Association's volumes of Channing's 
"Works" and " Life and many of the Association's 
tracts, for which more Japanese readers than you may 
suppose can be found. At the present time, there are on 
hand in all about twenty-five thousand copies of our 
twenty-three separate publications. But frequent new 
editions of several of these writings are published ; and 
from year to year, as our limited means allow, we add to 
our list other books and pamphlets of special value, drop- 
ping some that may have done their best service. When 
I left Japan in March, there were ready for the press 
translations of Prof. John Eiske's " Everlasting Reality of 
Religion ; " Secretary Batchelor's " Religion its own Evi- 
dence "; and a " Unitarian Manual," compiled by Mr. 
Kanda, chiefly from the handbooks prepared by Dr. 
Savage and Mr. Dole and from some writings of my own. 

Next among the agencies housed in Unity Hall is our 
Post-office Mission, under charge of Mr. Saji and an as- 
sistant,— an agency of remarkable interest and effectiveness. 
Mr. Saji's work has been of such noticeable value that 
some of the Orthodox missions have taken his methods as 
guides for the circulation of their own literature, and with 
acknowledged success. 

Then last, but by no means least, cur Hall contains 
rooms for the classes of Senshin Gakuin, the " School for 
Advanced Learning," probably more widely known in 



488 THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PABT III 



Japan than is the Meadville School known in the 
United States. Besides, our assembly room is always 
open for meetings, not specifically ours, that are under the 
direction of approved workers for charities, philanthropy, 
or the higher general welfare. Mr. Hajime Onishi and 
Mr. Nobuta Kishimoto are, respectively, dean and secretary 
of the Senshin Gakidn. 

The Japan Unity Hall is thus, you see, a full and busy 
place. It holds the tools with which your representative 
and eleven associates work ; namely, the " Japan Unitarian 
Association,' ' Tokyo's "First Unitarian Church," our " Ma- 
gazine's office," our " Publication Department," our "Post- 
office Mission," and the "School for Advanced Learning." 

2. Having these agencies at our disposal, the Mission's 
work is steadily carried forward. It is difficult to select 
any one of our departments as being of greater importance 
than the others ; but perhaps in immediate effect the De- 
partment of Publication is farthest reaching and most pro- 
ductive, with the least outlay of labor and money. In 
correspondence, for example, our secretary and the super- 
intendent of the Post-office Mission find much to do and 
plenty to arouse their deepest interest. Mr. Kanda last 
year answered more than twenty-one hundred letters of 
specific inquiry about religion, Christianity and Unitarian- 
ism ; and Mr. Saji in his post-office work dealt with nearly 
as many more correspondents. Altogether more than 
three thousand letters from persons seeking knowledge or 
spiritual help found response from us. And these letters 
presented by no means only formal, or simple inquiries. 
Their questions range over the whole domain of tradition, 
science and philosophy in their bearings upon spiritual 
faith and life. To answer these questions has demanded 
far more wisdom and knowledge than any of us have, or can 
gain. To many correspondents we could express only our 
beliefs, or hopes, and confess with them a common ignor- 
ance. The letters are a suggestive comment upon the 
importance of the work we are trying to do. To illustrate, 
I will repeat a few of the inquiries made. 

" What is the difference," ask many, " between religion 
and morality from the Unitarian standpoint?" Others 



1897 



SCOPE OF POST-OFFICE SERVICE 



489 



wish to know, " If moral development has been thorough, 
why is there any need of religion ? " One correspondent 
puts this problem : " Some prominent Christians say, 
Unitarianism has no organizing power, but that it 
supplies materials with which religious organizations 
may work. Now does this statement mean that organi- 
zation is not the object of the American Unitarian Associa- 
tion Mission to Japan ? Or, is the statement true only of 
Japanese Unitarianism ? Or, is it true of the essential 
nature of Unitarianism wherever it appears ?" " Do 
Unitarians and the Orthodox," queries one, " differ in their 
theories of morality ?" These questions, however, are simple 
compared with the many that are like those which I 
now repeat. One puzzled thinker wrote : "The ignorant 
man does what we believe to be wrong. But the ignorant 
sinning man did not create himself : he is Nature's creature. 
Must, not Nature, then, be responsible for the deeds these 
men do in their ignorance? Almost all sin comes from human 
weakness, or from man's lower life, which is antecedently 
God's creation. Must not God, then, be responsible for 
all human action, whether it be good or bad ? " Then, 
who can put problems harder to answer than these ? " Are 
matter and force, or universe and God separable ? Are 
there any facts to show that God or force exists without 
matter or universe ? When God's existence cannot be 
known without the universe, is it right to think that the 
universe is God ? Is there any need for worshipping 
force ? And, if man is part of the universal force, what 
reason is there for the part to worship the whole ? " One 
of our correspondents wished to know " Whether man 
and the other creatures have now stopped their physical 
evolution ? " Another was disturbed by this riddle, " If 
the world is not created for man chiefly, why is it neces- 
sary for man to serve God when none of the other creatures 
seem to be bound by religious faiths and ceremonies ? " 
Of course, among the correspondents are many who sub- 
ject the mysteries of Theodicy to our supposed superior 
knowledge, as, for instance, in this question : " Why is 
it in a merciful world so many die and so few live? And 
why does not Nature produce a full number of creatures, 



490 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PAET III 



and let them liv*e forever?" Another wonders "Why 
God's mercy seems to us so cruel ? " And another asked, 
" Can justice and mercy be brought together in thought 
without each destroying the other ? " I will quote but one 
more from among the many suggestive questions received. 
A correspondent troubled about the recent doings of the 
Great Powers of Christendom wrote : " Since the Golden 
Rule was given to the world we measure twenty centuries, 
but the world's wars do not become fewer. Now do you 
think that such a law as that of the Golden Eule can con- 
quer the world? Has it any living power among the 
nations of Europe ? " 

These quotations I make from letters received in the 
office of the Mission's secretary. In the Post-office Mis- 
sion, as a rule, more common and specific inquiries con- 
cerning the Christian creed and life appear. About two- 
thirds of our writers are Buddhist students, government 
school-teachers, and general scholars ; the other third 
consists of merchants, bankers, farmers, soldiers, and 
artisans. 

Along with written replies to the letters, we generally 
send selections from our stock of tracts, pamphlets, and 
books. Last year there were distributed in this way more 
than twenty thousand of our smaller publications, and 
more than one thousand copies of our books. But, in 
practically the same service, we sent more than nineteen 
thousand copies of our magazine. Altogether, say forty 
thousand copies of publications, devoted to matters bearing 
upon the higher thought and life, during the year found 
places from us among the thoughtful people of Japan. Mr. 
Saji, reporting to me about the Post-office Mission, says 
that last year he gave to inquirers calling upon him at his 
office more than five thousand pamphlets and books. Com- 
menting upon this fact, he writes : " Judging from the 
appearance of those who called upon me, I have no doubt 
that those who received the tracts occupy positions above 
the middle class ;" and then he adds, " I am glad to note 
that in my letters it is generally recognized that the Unit- 
arian movement is the one most just and true among the 
religions of Japan. At any rate, it is the plain fact that 



1897 THE POST OFFICE WORK : THE MAGAZINE 491 



there is hardly a person in the country who is not aware 
of the existence of the Unitarian organization, and that it 
is governed by the principle of casting aside all effete 
ideas and doctrines, and cleaving to that which is noble 
and beautiful in order that we may gain new life in new 
religious aspirations. It is not too much to say that the 
phenomenal change during the year 1896 in the religious 
field, showing itself in union meetings of the Buddhist and 
Christians and in the attempt of the revolutionary party of 
the Hongw T anji to reform the management of the sect, 
have been directly or indirectly influenced by our prin- 
ciples " 

Mr. Saji's report contains much else of great in- 
terest to all who care for our Japan work ; but I cannot 
further use it now, except to note that after his commend- 
ation of the methods suggested to him for carrying on his 
department he says : — " I feel satisfied, when we consider 
the amount of money allowed for the Post-office Mission 
expenses during the last two years, that within that limit 
the work has made a marked progress. I am proud to 
say that the idea of newspaper advertising and tract circu- 
lating was originated by the Unitarian Mission, and thus 
far we have secured a wonderful success. I sincerely hope 
you will plainly state the present condition and the im- 
mediate need of this ' Oriental child of the truth,' and let 
the Macedonian cry be heard among your generous 
country men." In this connection it may interest you to 
know that the circulation of our literature for the past two 
years has been self-sustaining. During this time we have 
made no unsought gratuitous distributions. In answer to 
our advertisements, correspondents are expected to send 
sufficient postage for prepayment of whatever literature we 
give them. We have received for this purpose in two, 
three, and four sen stamps, generally from thirty to fifty 
dollars and once as much as seventy dollars in one month. 

A word now concerning our Magazine. This magazine 
has become one of the acknowledged best media for the 
religious and moral forces operating in the Empire. Mr. 
Kishimoto is an able writer and editor, and he has the co- 
operation of the prominent thinkers of the country. Only 



492 THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PART III 



a few days ago, in the last copy of the Japan Mail re- 
ceived here, I read in a "Review of theEeligious Press " for 
the month this item : — " The latest number of the Shukyo 
presents its readers with a very learned and varied pro- 
gramme. The subjects are of wide range. This maga- 
zine is, in our opinion, unequalled in the comprehensive- 
ness of the subjects it treats and diversity in the method of 
treatment. Mr. Iizuka discusses ' The Great Blow dealt 
to Conservative Theology by the Theory of Evolution,' 
Mr. Fujita, ' The Influence on the Mind of Confucius of 
Ancient Chinese Thought,' and Mr. Oko ' The Otani Sect 
and its Reformers, from a Bystander's Point of View." 
Besides these there are articles on 'The Existence of God,' 
and ' Present Local Problems,' and two editorials on ' The 
Future of Religion' and 6 Should the Bible be used as a 
Text-book? " The Mail's review continues with extend- 
ed summaries of some of Shuhjo's papers. I regard our 
Shaky o as really a periodical for the times, dealing not 
with abstract and remote issues, but with the live questions 
of the day and for Japan. 

The work of the " First Unitarian Church " of Tokyo, 
under the pastorate of Mr. Saji and the co-operation of 
other members and friends of the Mission, is to me deeply 
interesting. The pledged membership of the church is 
one hundred and twelve, and the hearing for its Sunday 
services is generally large. Recently Mr. Kitashima, well 
known to many of you, has returned to Japan, and by his 
help has done much to make our church- worship attract- 
ive. It is a great misfortune for this Mission that our 
financial limitations have closed the way to Mr. Kitashi- 
ma's full co-operation with us, so well fitted for it as he is 
by his education at the Meadville Divinity School and his 
active pastorate at Vineland, N.J. 

As yet I have said nothing special about our school, the 
Senshin Gakuin, which, all things considered, I belifeve to 
be the agency of greatest worth at our command. To my 
constant regret now, we have been forced, by the small 
amount of money we may spend, to change the very prom- 
ising plans with which the school was founded six years 
ago. We gave up last year our regular three years' 



3 897 THE SCHOOL FOR ADVANCED LEARNING 493 

courses of study, and adopted instead somewhat the 
methods of University Extension lectures. And, in order 
to secure even this much, to save the reputation of the 
Mission, uphold before the Japanese the good name of the 
American Unitarian Association, and to continue as far as 
possible our most useful service, our teachers have shown 
a large measure of devotion and self-denial. During the 
past year we have had thirty-two students, seventeen of 
whom are Buddhist priests, belonging to the enlarging 
liberal parties in the sects ; all the students men of mature 
years, who will occupy places of greater or less prominence in 
education, in letters, or in the Church hereafter. At present, 
the School's courses of lectures, under the care of eight pro- 
fessors and lecturers, cover as important topics as these : 
" The Philosophy of Belgian,'* " Fundamental Truths,'' 
" The Principles of Ethics/' " The Progress and Principles 
of Modern Philosophy/ ' " Evolution of Keligion," " Cur- 
rent Eeligious Problems/' " Hindu Philosophy/' " Social 
Problems of To-day," "Fundamental or Essential Thought 
of Buddhism," " Economics and Social Morality," 
u Crimes " and " Psychology." Among our lecturers, who 
are all able men, are one of the very ablest and most pro- 
minent Christian scholars of Japan, Tokiwo Yokoi, and 
probably the most effective leader among the men who are 
bringing about a reformation of Buddhism, Seiran OuchL 

It is my conviction that the real crown, or flower, of your 
Japan Mission is this ■ ' School for Advanced Learning." 
Yet, I am forced to say further, that because of our finan- 
cial weakness this most excellent thing of all in our organi- 
zation is now in danger of impotence and failure. Our 
graduates have taken places among the most useful held 
by the young men of the country in schools, on the press, 
and in the temples, utilizing the forces by which Japan's 
best future is to be shaped. In the late reform agitation 
of the Shingon sect, two of our students have had promi- 
nent parts. Our commencement exercises have always 
attracted general attention and favorable press com- 
ment ; and the orator at each of our three an- 
niversaries has been one of Japan's best known and 
prophetic speakers. Also, just before I left Japan, an 



49± 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PART III 



association of the alumni and friends of the school was 
organized for the purpose of helping onward, financially 
and morally, the welfare of our Senshin Gakui?i. It will 
be a lamentable day for your Mission, and a most 
serious obstacle to the further advance of liberal religion 
in Japan, the day — if the day come — when we are 
compelled to silence our lecture halls. 

But what, it may be asked now, are the results following 
the work that the Japan Mission is doing ? Naturally, these 
results are difficult to measure ; but evident to all who will 
examine is the fact that, small as we are, our influence is 
far out of proportion to our numbers or our means. We 
are, probably , more widely known in the Empire, and 
receive more attention in Japanese current literature, both 
Buddhist and Christian, than any other foreign religious 
body represented in the Far East. Take, for example, this 
fact, — a fact of most significant meaning ; — our movement 
is contributing a new word to the Japanese vocabulary,— 
our own name " Unitarian/' Yet the name " Unitar- 
ian," so written and pronounced, is coming to stand in 
the literature of the day, secular and religious, Buddhist 
and Christian, not so much as indicating a specific religious 
denomination, or sect, as a type of thought and life that 
may be found among all religious circles and denomina- 
tions. The name " Unitarian/' consequently, may be 
found to-day attached to religious liberals, whatever their 
sectarian associations, — to men freed from superstition or 
traditional dogmas as such, and striving to find through" 
the reason some solid ground for spiritual faith and life. A 
Christian, a Buddhist, a Shintoist, a Confucian, need but 
make himself now T a prophet of the new day for the 
mind and soul, to receive, sooner or later, the name we 
bear. The teachers of the chief Orthodox Christian 
college of Kyoto, the Doshisha, for example, although 
they are not associated with your Mission, and would 
decline such association, are again and again referred 
to in public print as " Unitarians," The changes they 
have lately been making in the direction of a liberal ad- 
ministration of their institution have brought upon them 
our name. "The Universal Conference of Religions" held 



1S97 THE UNIVERSAL CONFERENCE OF RELIGIONS 495 



in Tokyo last autumn, athough composed of Christians 
and Buddhists and Shintoists of various sects, still in good 
standing in their special denominations, was branded as a 
collection of " Unitarians " and restless Buddhists. Any 
Christian or Buddhist writer of a rationalizing tendency in 
religion is marked by many critics as a " Unitarian." In 
fact, our name is fast becoming a Japanese word that 
points out for every man and thing with which it is asso- 
ciated, " Reason in Religion.' 1 

Of course, this use of our name expresses a great 
truth ; for our spirit is far larger than any form it 
takes. In this sense, then, what was said to me at 
the " Universal Conference of Religions " by a pro- 
minent Christian liberal was true, " You ought to be 
gratified to-dav, for this is largely your work." Another 
prominent man, once our avowed opponent, but whose 
relations to us are to-day such that I may not discover his 
name here, recognizes in Unitarianism the realization of 
his ideals ; yet he has not changed his ideals since he 
was our antagonist, Still another leading man, here 
unnamed, not long ago urged me to expand our present 
work. To my remark, ''Why, three years ago you would 
have nothing to do with us ! " he answered, " Yes, true ; 
but things have changed since then." The change, I 
know, is in him, not in us, At a farewell meeting held 
by friends of our faith, as I left Japan, one of them said. 
" Bear to the American Unitarians this message, ■ The 
Japan Mission is like a diamond,— small, but known 
from afar by its bright light.' " Another speaker at the 
same meeting said ; " Rather let me say to them that 
Unitarianism in Japan is like a magnet, — diffusive and 
pervasive, polarizing its surroundings into the distance 
It is a center from which emanates in all directions a 
mightily felt power." 

Indeed, I do not think it is venturing too much when I 
claim that, though our Mission is the smallest in its person- 
nel and the weakest in its financial resources of any of 
the foreign religious bodies represented in the far East, 
circumstances have given it place as of strongest influence 
and most widely known name. Let us not forget that 



496 THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PART III 



the ideas and forces we represent are really the ideas and 
forces most in accord with whatever tendency to religious 
development there is among the educated Japanese. 
Largely for this reason is it that the influence of your 
little Mission is so out proportion to its means or ability. 
The serious and peculiar obstacles that now exist in 
Japan to the spread of Christianity, certainly are far less 
formidable to Unitarianism, in its larger meanings, than to 
any other organized spiritual influence. Unitarianism, for 
example, does not antagonize the exceedingly sensitive 
nationalism that of late has possessed the Japanese 
populace. Moreover, it does not set any letter before the 
spirit. In presenting its faiths, it makes its appeals 
through the reason,— the universal and satisfying arbiter. 
It offers a free welcome to truth whencesoever it comes. 
It allies itself with science and philosophy. It uses as a 
working principle "the sympathy of religions. ,, It 
operates as part of the forces of humanity, with human 
welfare in view ; not as an agent of an ethnic civilization 
merely, and with the purpose of transforming the East 
into the likeness only of the "West. We do not represent 
a State Church. We have no fixed and final creed, or 
ritual. We are in Japan to try to attract the Japanese to 
ideals which each soul may realize in many forms ; though 
for all will remain the same essential truth and beauty 
and good. Through these facts your Mission has gained 
its place of exceptional prominence and use. Indeed, your 
Mission has in this way upheld a standard under which 
Eeligion, not only in Japan, but in the world's lands 
throughout, is moving toward a sublime and blessed future. 

Inspired by such faith as this, naturally one looks for 
special signs of 'promise for its fulfilment. Are there any 
such signs ? Yes, not a few. As the life of the Japanese 
is to-day disclosed to me, I see much to encourage and 
strengthen me in this confidence. 

Current literature, for example, abounds with themes 
devoted to the problems of religion, — speculative, critical, 
polemic, and practical. And noticeable, as much as the 
earnestness with which they are treated, is the intellectual 
freedom of the discussions. 



1S97 



LITEEATUEE : SOCIAL SEEYICE 



497 



There are some periodicals, both Buddhist and Christian, 
that represent only the literalisms of the sects by which 
they are supported. But in most magazines are more or 
less open arenas for the display of the whole round of the 
questions of spiritual faith and life. For about two years 
I conducted for one of the leading journals a monthly 
"Review of the Religious Press " of the Empire. In this work 
I passed under reading some scores of magazines whose 
zeal, thoroughness, scope, and free handling of topics were 
a constant surprise and pleasure. The familiarity with 
the best religious, philosophical, ethical, and social litera- 
ture of Europe and America displayed by many Japanese 
essayists is remarkably intimate. And they showed 
clearly, too, a sense of the need of spiritual influence and 
aw T aking among their countrymen. However little, Religion 
may be a vital force in present Japanese society, and 
however little, merely traditional Religion may have ac- 
ceptance among the people at large, beyond question there 
are many earnest minds that constantly busy themselves 
with the problems of the higher life, and are seeking ways 
by which to make the soul's interests dominant. This is 
to me a most cheering sign of promise. 

Then, among large classes of students, all sorts of 
questions of social order ; of public and private ethics ; of 
reform in the treatment of criminals ; of the care of the 
sick, of the idiotic, of the insane, and of the poor ; have an 
attraction almost greater than is felt in our own land. The 
intense patriotism of the Japanese, their reverence for the 
Imperial house, and their love of home, their ambition to 
see their land the peer, and, indeed, the superior of any 
other land, induce their thinking men to make good, to 
the farthest extent, the claim advanced through their 
traditions and history to peculiar moral principle and 
practice. Now, vis-a-vis with the Occident many of the ■ 
leading counsellors of the people are urgent in their appeals 
to their countrymen for such loyalty and filial piety, and 
such a ministry to social health, beauty, and peace that no 
one of the Emperor's subjects shall ever have a sense of 
inferiority before the social excellence displayed Jby any 
people of the West. Self-centered the aim may be, — only 



498 THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PART III 



another evidence, it may be, of Japanese self-satisfaction 
and ambition ; but the effort is directed toward high 
things, and, I doubt not, will do much to carry the 
Mikado's Empire onward to grand achievements. This 
social-ethical purpose, now universal among the large 
numbers who make social welfare their study, is another 
sign of promise that, I hold, will be fulfilled in Religion. 

Again, the sects of the ancient religions of Japan are 
now everywhere feeling the stir of a new life. In several 
instances, as I have said, this life shows itself in painful 
dissension and in disgraceful exposure of long-existing 
corruption, in struggle against any disturbance of centuries- 
long established custom and institution ; but also it appears 
in the successful beginnings of reforms, in the adoption of 
many of the methods of the missions from Christendom, 
in the transformation of their schools, through changes in 
the ages-long unchanged courses of studies, — namely, the 
acceptance of scientific teaching in history, in geography, 
in psychology, in philosophy, instead of the ancient sage 
and priestlore imported from old India and China. 
Especially noticeable within the Japanese priesthood is a 
growing sense of personal responsibility to the moral tenets 
of their sects, and of a larger than merely official, or 
ritualistic care of their parishes. The Buddhist priest and 
the common man are becoming much more closely 
related to one another now than they were but a genera- 
tion ago. And the beautiful lessons of faith and duty 
that cover the pages of the long forgotten, or unknown 
Scriptures of Buddhism are now appearing in rapidly 
increasing volume, as tracts in the Japanese vernacular 
for the edification of the members of the common house- 
holds. Strange to say, too, under the care of some 
Japanese Buddhist sects, hospitals and asylums for the 
■ helpless — agencies unknown among them before the en- 
trance of Christian civilization — are coming into existence 
and gaining vigorous support. 

Yet another sign of promise for religion, lately especially 
strong, is the weakening among believers of their allegiance 
to the Orthodox Christian creeds. The Japanese Christian 
Church, whatever else maybe said of it, cannot be describ- 



1897 THE JAPANESE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 499 



ed as orthodox. The creeds of the Middle Ages of 
Christendom, however much they may have been formally 
accepted by the converts of ten and twenty years ago, have 
no place in the minds of to-day's educated Japanese. I 
hope that, in saying this, I shall not be misunderstood, or 
be misjudged as to the animus with which I speak. The 
rationalism and the creed al changes of present Japanese 
Christianity are but facts of common report, and of acknow- 
ledgment in the statistics and writings of the missions. 
The statistics of Japanese Christianity for the last nine years 
are sufficient to cause the gravest concern among those who 
have these special forms of belief at heart. And yet I see 
signs of promise in this decay. Naturally ; for I, with you 
cannot accept these creeds, and why should we sorrow when 
we see them losing power ? The main interest that concerns 
us is that, in the failure of the letter, the saving spirit does 
not also disappear. In Japan this danger is fully in sight. 
There is no doubt that in spiritual power much of the 
work done by the Orthodox missions is of the very best : it 
serves the purest, highest, divinest ends. The misfortune 
has been that the Medieval creed of sin, of eternal damna- 
tion, and of salvation as possible only through the blood- 
bought redemption wrought out on Calvary, has almost 
inevitably involved in its fate the real power of the faith 
and life of Jesus of Nazareth,- — that which to us is the 
essential Christianity. But it may be — and in the end I 
am confident it will be — that this peril will be passed. 
The literal, Medieval form of Christianity, as knowledge 
and enlightenment grow, will have had its day ; and the 
Christianity of faith in " God's Fatherhood " and in the 
" Brotherhood of Man," transfigured by the inspiration of 
the later years, will command a widely extended and 
happy discipleship. 

Thus, you see, I interpret the recent reaction from Ortho- 
dox Christianity as but a sign of the coming of religion 
that will satisfy and remain. 

There is much else that I would like to add to what I 
have already said, but I must leave my theme now. I 
find great promise for religion in the present attitude of the 
Imperial Government toward Christianity. During these 



500 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PAET III 



late eventful years, especially from the time of the war 
with China, all traces of the ancient State hostility to 
Christianity seem to have disappeared. True, Christianity 
is not yet a form of religion recognized and legalized by 
the civil authorities ; but during the war Christian preachers 
were allowed to go among the soldiers, and give them their 
spiritual and humane services. No governmental obstacle 
now stands in the way of any Japanese who wishes to 
ally himself with any Christian church. I regard this, 
when I remember the implacable hostility to Christianity 
of the Japanese State for two hundred and more years, 
even to as late a year as 1873, as a sign of most cheering 
promise. I find, too, in the present widely extended 
activity among the nobility and upper classes of philan- 
thropy, charity, and of general humane aims, hopeful 
evidences of religious and moral power, encouraging to a 
high degree. General sanitation, guardianship against 
epidemic desease ; prison administration ; aid to sufferers 
from earthquake, flood, fire, and other natural calamities ; 
the support that society gives to many such benevolent 
enterprises as find favor in Boston or London,— all these 
are signs of the working of just the same spiritual forces 
that operate among the peoples of Christendom. 

So, also, specifically, and with most significant meaning, 
I look upon the first " Universal Eeligious Congress " ever 
assembled in Japan, that held its organizing sessions last 
autumn. There, representatives of all the forms of religion 
having Japanese followings — Shinto, Buddhist, Confucian, 
and Christian — met together in amicable conference. 
From that small beginning who can tell what great results 
may issue ? Although, among the fifty and more delegates 
present, there w r ere representatives of all regions in the 
domain of faith, in the diversity of operations but one 
spirit was at work. Only to name the fact is to open to 
minds like yours that know, the sublimest possibilities. 

So, then, with this cheering story of the work of your Mis- 
sion in far Japan, and with this outlook for the best things 
of the spirit there, I have come back to you. And, with 
this recital, I wish that my report to you to-day might 
close. But it is necessary for me to add yet somewhat to 



1897 SPECIAL APPEAL FOU THE MISSION 501 



what I have said. I am much concerned about the Mis- 
sion's future. "Why ? Because, in the struggle which your 
executive officers have to carry on, through the present 
general financial depression, the many interests intrusted to 
their care, the home support of the Japan work has now 
been put in peril. There is but little money called for for 
our work, as you know, — not nearly so much as many of 
our parishes expend, each in its own narrow limits. And 
yet, that small amount has been growing smaller from year 
to year for several years past ; and now the question has 
become serious with your Board of Directors as to whether 
or not they are justified in their endeavor to uphold longer 
this part of their burden. At the Board's last meeting, a 
sum sufficient to carry the Japan Mission only six months 
longer than the present financial year was voted for ; and 
the whole future thereafter was left open and overcast 
with doubt. Pardon me, then, if, with my closing words, 
I appeal to you to do something, and to do it speedily, 
by which your officers may feel that they can freely sustain 
this most important agency, as I believe it to be, — this work 
of farthest-reaching beneficence that the American Uni- 
tarian Association has now in charge. Must it be that 
now, when, after years of hard work, your Mission is 
fully equipped with buildings, men, literature, and knowl- 
edge, its devoted service must cease ? Must it be that 
now, when we have almost everywhere gained recognition 
among the Japanese, as the chief visible embodiment of 
the spirit of the times, as prophetic of true religious and 
ethical insight, our voice shall be stilled, and the confidence 
in us gained with so much labor and waiting be lost ; or 
worse than lost, by being turned into reproach ? Must it 
be that word shall pass into the religious press of the world ; 
especially of Germany, whose liberal mission in Japan 
steadily gains in home support and in official strength and 
usefulness, also of England, whose Unitarian churches 
have recently permanently endowed a mission in India, 
also into the religious and secular press of our own coun- 
try, — must it be that word shall pass that the Japan 
Unitarian Mission has failed ? No ! not that the Japan 
Mission has failed! That Mission has not failed. If 



502 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PART III 



failure befall this work anywhere, the failure will not be 
in Japan. My associates, some of whom have undertaken 
their work with great self-denial, one among them through 
much persecution and trial, have served your cause faith- 
fully ; in fact, through their devotion the gains I have re- 
counted have been ma3e. They may become powerless 
because of what shall be done by you ; but no one can say 
of them that they have failed. My earnest appeal to the 
Unitarian churches of America, then, is, — Sustain now the 
Mission which your Executive Board has sent to Japan, and 
let it work on until the institutions it has brought into being 
have grown out of their infancy into self-reliant strength. 
That strength, I feel sure, will come in the not distant 
future. Let not now the labor, the patience, the care, and 
the pain of the years be passed by as things done and 
borne in vain ! 

But I will not plead farther, except in assuring you of one 
thing more. In Japan, such is the power of the new civil- 
ization there spreading that, the very stars in their courses 
fight for the methods and principles in religion for which 
your fathers struggled, and which, through their labors, have 
come to be your easy and blessed heritage. This is true. But 
also in Japan, to theUnitarian Mission belongs the distinction 
of having become, in the eyes of the educated Japanese, in 
large measure, the acknowledged herald, agent, and em- 
bodiment of these principles and methods. Your Mission 
has done much to give to these principles and methods 
definite and tangible speech and form. And their speedier 
triumph will come just because it has been your Mission's 
duty and privilege to give them this expression. I pray 
that this same alliance may not be broken by any blow 
such as I am now compelled to fear, but that more closely 
than ever your Mission and the Time-spirit may henceforth 
go forward together, and that better than ever the Mission 
may be enabled to interpret for this Spirit, in that far-off 
Empire, those things that most make for truth, righteous- 
ness, and peace, Then shall you, through the Mission, 
help in the divinest ways to guide human souls ; and thus 
shall we exalt before men's eyes the true Christ as their 
Light and Life. 



ith the Japan Unitarian Mission, 1900 



1900 A RETROSPECT THROUGH TEX YEARS 503 



III 

In the year 1900, apparently, the time had arrived 
when the Unitarian Mission, then well organized and 
working well, should be relieved of its foreign superintend- 
ent and be eared for wholly by our Japanese friends. I 
returned to America in the spring of that year ; and on May 
25th, at the " Seventy-fifth Anniversary meeting of the 
American Unitarian Association," I rendered a condensed 
account of my stewardship in an address under the title, — 

The Japan Mission : — A Record. 

Ten years ago I went to Japan. I went commissioned 
by this Association with Eev. Arthur May Knapp, to the 
care of a Unitarian Mission among the Japanese. Accom- 
panying us with their families were three gentlemen just 
appointed professors for chairs in the Keiogijiku University 
at Tokyo, Prof. Garrett Droppers, Prof. W. S. Liscomb, 
and Prof. J. H. Wignaore. There was also as our travel- 
ling companion Mr. Saichiro Kanda, who, after a course 
of education in this country, was returning to his native 
land. The three Keiogijiku professors, in addition to their 
academic offices, were under appointment by our Associa- 
tion to its Japan work. And Mr. Kanda had turned his 
fa:e homeward, invited to help the, Mission in whatever 
way might be found desirable. Shortly after our party 
had arrived in Japan, Kev. H. W. Hawkes, an English 
Unitarian, joined us, bringing to us freely and voluntarily 
his help. So then, in my going to Japan, I was one of a 
group of seven, commissioned to represent to the people of 
Japan the faiths, aims, and endeavors of the religious 
movement among the Western peoples named Unit- 
arianism. 

How came it about that we seven persons had left our 
homes to go to that far-away land ? I cannot now give 
full answer to the question ; but record should be made 
here of the fact that our Mission was, in the main, the 
result of urgent invitation sent by certain Japanese — leaders 



504 



THE JAPAN UNITAEIAN MISSION PABT III 



in public affairs — to the Unitarians of Europe and America. 
They had asked that Unitarian representatives be sent to 
their country, so that, in the momentous political and social 
revolution which the Japanese were then undergoing, the in- 
fluences of the religious rationalism of Christendom might 
have place. Already, in 1884, Mi\ Yukichi Fukuzawa, 
in the columns of Jiji Shimpo, — the writer probably the 
most powerful single personage affecting public opinion in 
Japan's new era, and the paper by far the leading one 
among the Japanese journals,— in this paper, Mr. 
Fukuzawa had already recommended as of manifold 
advantage to his countrymen the acceptance by them of 
Christianity in some form. Two years later, Mr. Fumio 
Yano, now Japan's minister in China, one of Mr. 
Fukuzawa's pupils in the Keiogijiku, the great school 
founded by Mr. Fukuzawa,— a confidential friend also, — 
had set forth in a series of noteworthy articles in the 
Hochi Shimbun, another journal of importance, his opinion 
that Christianity is the only means available for the moral 
salvation of his country. Mr. Yano announced to his 
fellow countrymen that the Unitarian faith is the form of 
Christianity which, through its freedom from superstition 
and supernaturalism, would rescue the country from its 
growing moral dangers. Unitarianism, he claimed, would 
be just the form of Christianity that would successfully 
appeal to the judgment of Japan's cultured and educated 
classes. At a time not much later, this movement toward 
Unitarianism received important aid from the sympathetic 
expressions of such prominent educators and publicists as 
Prof. Toyama, hearer and admirer of our Prof. Brigham 
of Ann Arbor, Mich., and late president of the Imperial 
University ; Hon. Hiroyuki Kato, a senator, and also 
president of the Imperial University ; and Mr. Masanao 
Nakamura, a senator and a Chinese scholar of noted 
attainments. Christianity in its rational forms was also 
the subject of earnest and commendatory discussion on the 
part of other influential Japanese scholars and statesmen, 
such as Count Soyeshima, Prof. Sugiura, Hon. H. 
Watanabe, and Hon. Kentaro Kaneko. 

It was from some of these gentlemen that at length 



1900 



BEGINNINGS OF THE MISSION 



505 



came directly to the American Unitarian Association the 
invitation to send representatives to Japan. Mr. Kaneko's 
memorable interview with the directors of the Association 
as published in the Christian Register in September, 1889, 
is a significant illustration of the attitude taken, during a 
large part of the decade then closing, by many prominent 
Japanese toward rational Christianity. The directors of 
this Association, after some deliberation, at last answered 
the appeal favorably and generously. In the year lb87- 
1888, Mr, Knapp undertook a mission of inquiry to the 
"Sunrise Empire." He was cordially received by interested 
friends of rational religion. For more than a year he 
occupied himself with making known by lecture and 
correspondence, and in interviews and through the press, 
the message of Unitarians to the people of Japan, In the 
spring of 1889 he returned to the United States, rendering 
a report of his inquiries. In every way his report was 
favorable. Japan seemed to be ready for, and to be await- 
ing, " the Unitarian gospel." The Association accepted 
and approved Mr. Knapp's report. For this reason it 
was that, in the autumn of the same year, we seven 
persons, commissioned as a sort of Unitarian embassy to 
the Far East, had begun our lives anew among the 
Japanese people. 

Since that time ten years have passed, And now, as 
the last one remaining in office of those Unitarian messen- 
gers, I have come home to resign my charge, and to render 
to those who placed it in my care an account of our service. 
So far as in us power to do has lain, the great work to 
which my colleagues and myself were appointed has been 
done. Why I come back to you alone involves a story of 
changes in the personnel of the mission that need not be 
told at length. It is enough, for the purpose of this 
record, to remember that in the winter of 1890-91 Mr. 
Knapp, because of impaired health, resigned his position, 
and returned to America. Mr. Hawkes, not long after- 
ward, on account of pressing duties at home, went back 
to England, and soon resumed ministerial work there. In 
the spring of 1891, the vacancy caused by Mr. Knapp's 
resignation was filled by the arrival from the United 



506 THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PART III 



States of Kev. W. I. Lawrance. In 1892, Prof. Wig- 
more, having been invited to an important chair in the 
Northwestern University, accepted the invitation, and 
left Japan. In 1893, Prof. Liscomb, by reason of increas- 
ing illness, returned to America, and, soon after reaching 
his home, died. In 1894, Mr. Lawrance, in the midst of 
a protracted and severe physical prostration, gave up his 
Japan work, and came back to the United States. Death 
again came into our little circle in 1896, taking from us 
Mrs. Droppers. In the winter of 1898, Prof. Droppers, 
having been elected to the presidency of the University of 
South Dakota, resigned his Keiogijiku professorship and 
his office in our Mission, accepting the high place to which 
he had been called. It has been my fortune to remain in 
connection with the Japan work from the beginning, and 
to have had for more than nine years its superintendence. 
But, like the others who constituted the Unitarian repre- 
sentation in the Far East, I also have now come back to 
my people and home. A cycle has thus been completed. 
From the present time a new period in our religious and 
spiritual history in Japan begins. Unitarianism is no 
longer a strange thing there, nor is it now directed under 
alien care. It is to-day a living, growing organism, known 
throughout the Empire; in large measure already maintain- 
ed, advanced, and directed as part and product of Japanese 
thought and life. 

Standing to-day at this turning of the ways, one natu- 
rally looks back over the record made by the years, and 
asks, What have the years brought forth ? Have the 
ideals of the applicants for the Unitarian Mission and of 
its founders and guardians been realized ? That is, has 
Unitarianism been received by, and has it answered the 
expectations directed to it by the earnest Japanese who 
invited a mission from it to their fellow-countrymen? 
And have the faith and endeavors of the Unitarians in 
America and in Europe, and in direct care of the Mission, 
met with a satisfying return? What, in a word, has 
come of the attempt made among the Japanese people for 
ten years to help them in the way they sought through our 
Unitarian help ? 



1900 



THE PURPOSE OF THE MISSION 



507 



Before these questions can be answered satisfactorily 
there is need of a clear understanding of much that is 
bound up with them. Xo just answers could be given, 
for instance, were the Unitarian Mission to be classed 
along with nearly all the other missions from Christ- 
endom. When the American Unitarian Association 
responded to the Japanese appeal to " Come over and 
help," the friends and founders of the Mission, it is 
to be remembered, did not lay upon their represent- 
atives the duty of teaching an authoritative and fixed 
body of religious dogma — a "creed" — in the name 
of Unitarianism, or of carrying to and of reproducing 
among the Japanese a traditional system of ecclesiastical 
organization and government. Far from it. When the 
Mission was established, those who had it in charge were 
officially instructed to {< express the sympathy of the 
Unitarians of America for progressive religious movements 
in Japan, and to give all necessary information to the 
leaders of religious thought and action in that country." 
In consequence of this declared aim, the Association's 
representatives, from the beginning of their service, sought 
to discover, to encourage, and to co-operate with any 
religious association or group of persons, or with in- 
dividuals, irrespective of form of religious sect or personal 
belief, that might wish to know of the mature and advanced 
thought in Christendom about man's higher, or spiritual 
problems or interests. It is true that at the present time 
there are, and that from a time early in the Mission's 
history there have been, Japanese churches and associa- 
tions known distinctively as " Unitarian." There is also 
much literature published and distributed, labelled and 
acknowledged as specifically " Unitarian." But it is the 
fact that no foreign Unitarian was ever present at the or- 
ganization of a Japanese Unitarian church, or association. 
It is also the fact that our Mission has no organic connec- 
tion with any Japanese Unitarian institution ; also, that it 
declines to place upon its publications any authoritative 
endorsement of their contents. 

I repeat a few of the characteristic utterances of 
some of those to whom have been intrusted the Japan 



508 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PART III 



work. Eev. A. M. Knapp, the Mission's pioneer, de- 
clared at the beginning of his work, — " The errand of 
Unitarianism to Japan is based upon the now familiar 
idea of the sympathy of religions. "With the convic- 
tion that we are messengers of distinctive and valu- 
able truths which have not been emphasized, and 
that, in return, there is much in your faith and life 
which to our harm we have not emphasized, receive us 
not as theological propagandists, but as messengers of 
the new gospel of human brotherhood in the religious 
life of man." Eev. H. W. Hawkes, the earnest English 
volunteer to our work, describes the Unitarian aim in 
these words ; — " We seek to builjd broader foundations 
than creed or sect ; to demonstrate reason in religion, 
science in theology, and all things in God. This is grander 
than any denominational triumph. " Eev. W. I. Lawrance, 
whose devoted and all too brief sevice in the Mission 
is well remembered in Tokyo, wrote that "our work 
in Japan marks a new departure in missions.' ' We 
" bear the simple gospel of fellowship, and character. 
We not only acknowledge with frankness, but accept 
with gratitude, all that is true and uplifting in the faiths 
already there. We hold up to them the pure theism and 
the deep-rooted optimism of Christianity. Our method is 
based on the sympathy of religions." Also, that my own 
declarations in the establishment of the Mission may appear 
as part of this reqprd, I recall this passage from a publish- 
ed answer to an inquiry made to me by a Buddhist priest : 
" Unitarianism has not come to Japan to destroy, but to 
fulfil. Unitarianism is here to set men free, or rather to help 
the free minds of Japan to set all minds free ; and to hasten 
the coming in the world, as far as may be, of the sublime 
empire of love and righteousness, which will at last make 
of Humanity a true Brotherhood under the care of the in- 
finite and eternal God, our Father." 

But, of course, the Mission's aim and work were not 
wholly expressed by these universal, emancipating, in- 
clusive and sympathetic declarations. Had I time, I should 
repeat much else from the published records of our workers, 
to show their efforts to make known throughout the 



1900 UNITARIANISM AS A EELIGIOUS IDEAL 509 



Japanese Empire their positive convictions, held as par- 
takers of the Unitarian fellowship, concerning the great 
problems of religion and ethics. But, speaking for myself, 
who have had for most of its period the responsible direc- 
tion of the Mission, I will put into this record an extract 
from an announcement I made public shortly after the 
whole care of the work had been transferred to me. " If 
I were asked/' I said, " what Unitarianism distinctively is, 
I should say it is a movement springing out of Christian- 
ity, which seeks to become the representative religious 
force of the present age. It does not claim to be the only 
religious movement that works by rational and scientific 
methods, or accepts for religious use the results of these 
methods. Eoman Catholicism, Orthodox Protestantism, 
Liberal Christianity, Religious Rationalism, are all, more 
or less, under the influence of the ' modern spirit.' Unitar- 
ianism, however, has submitted itself without reserve to 
the direction of this ' spirit.' In a course of steady prog- 
ress it has now reached a position where it is seeking to 
do for the religious part of man's nature exactly the same 
kind of work that philosophy is doing for his search for 
ultimate principles, or that science is doing for his investi- 
gation of the phenomena of matter and mind. In other 
words, the characteristic object of Unitarianism is to pro- 
mote the knowledge and the practice of pure religion by the 
aid of the best philosophy and science. And what do 
Unitarians mean by * pure religion ' ? Fundamental in 
the modern conception of religion there appear the idea of 
infinite and eternal Being; the consciousness of duty ; and 
a sense of spirituality in man. By ' pure religion ' there- 
fore Unitarians mean: (1) worship of God as infinite and 
eternal Source, Power, Life, Guide, and Ruler of the Uni- 
verse ; (2) following the life exemplified by the world's 
spiritual teachers, saints, and benefactors, among whom 
we reverence Jesus Christ as Leader ; (3) obedience to 
moral law, however made known ; (4) endeavor to realize 
a perfect Brotherhood of Mankind ; (5) cherishing a hope 
of immortal life. 

" This conception of religion is not set forth as an au- 
thorized denominational creed. It is simply an inter pre- 



510 THE JAPAN UNITAKIAN MISSION PAET III 



tation of the notions that are common among the Unitari- 
ans of to-day as the leading subjects of their thought and 
work. It is by this statement, however, that Uhitarian- 
ism may and should be approved or condemned. It is 
with this statement that the Unitarian work now in pro- 
gress in Japan should be met and measured/' 

I wrote much more than this then to the Japanese people ; 
but these words, together with what has been repeated from 
other responsible minds, suffice to show the unique posi- 
tion held by the Unitarian Mission among the other Chris- 
tian missions in the Mikado's Empire. 

This aim having been set for it, the work of our Mission 
was begun, and has been carried forward through the de- 
cade just passed. Systematic and definite shape was at 
an early date given to the work. We organized the Mis- 
sion's agencies into the three departments : (1) Church 
Extension ; (2) Publication ; (3) Education. These depart- 
ments were put into operation, and were developed in the 
following ways. At the first, with the aid of interpreters, 
we began a series of religious services, and invited attend- 
ance upon them from the Japanese. These services were 
at their beginning held in rooms of tea-houses and in other 
hired places. An extended hearing welcomed us. 

Not long afterward, we bought a small Buddhist school 
building near Shiba Park ; and there, in the spring of 1890, 
the "First Unitarian Church of Tokyo" came into existence. 
This Church was formed by the Japanese in answer to 
their own sense of need, and it was based upon a consti- 
tution devised and written entirely by Japanese. A 
Japanese minister, coming to us from one of the Orthodox 
churches, was chosen pastor of this church; and we 
foreign workers became guests in its pulpit. For our own 
responsible work w 7 e continued religious and other con- 
ferences and classes in Tokyo and in the larger towns. 

Along with these efforts toward " Church Extension " 
much was done in that first year in the way of the publi- 
cation and distribution of Unitarian literature. A maga- 
zine, named the Unitarian, was started in March, 1890. 
I was its editor ; and I announced in its prospectus, after 
describing the origin and purposes of our Mission, that 



1900 OEGANIZATION OF THE MISSION 511 



"this magazine has been established with the earnest 
hope that it may aid in advancing the welfare of the 
people of Japan, by making known to them the best and 
most practical results of social science in the largest com- 
prehension of the term, as far as it applies to personal, 
domestic, charitable, educational, industrial, commercial, 
and art life ; that it may emphasize the conclusions of the 
profoundest ethical research ; and that it may help, too, 
in opening up larger vistas for religious faith and aspira- 
tion, without which the human soul is barren and bound, 
and a nation is withheld from its greatest source of dignity 
and true power." 

Then, for the purposes of " Education," in the 
autumn of 1890, courses of lectures on religious, ethical, 
and social-science topics, developing in 1891 into 
the Jiya Shin Gakko, or " School of Liberal Theology," 
and later into the Senshin Gakuin, or " School for Ad- 
vanced Learning," were begun. The course of study as 
prescribed for the school advanced from four series of 
lectures in 1890, — on : 1. " Unitarian Principles and Be- 
liefs 2. " General Outlines of Christian History"; 3. 
"Some Problems of Conscience"; and 4. " The Ethical 
Application of Certain Economic Principles," — delivered to 
whomever might happen to come to hear them, — into 
twelve extended studies. These were, in part: 1. "The 
Philosophy of Eeligion,' , pursued historically and psy- 
chologically ; " 2. "Comparative Study of the Great 
Eeligions of the World;" 3. "Biblical Criticism and 
Christian Doctrine ; " 4. " History of Christianity ; " 
5. "History of Rationalism ; " 6. "The Eeligions of 
Japan;" 7. " Japanese Classical Literature ; " 8. "Theory 
of Ethics;" and 9. "The History of Philosophy." 
These studies formed the curriculum of an organized semi- 
nary, in which, when its three classes were filled, there 
were between thirty and forty regular and special students, 
nearly all of whom had been graduates of Japanese higher 
schools and colleges. The Senshin Gakuin has the high 
distinction of being an institution in which, with unembar- 
rassed intellectual freedom, its faculty and students could 
seek a true Theology and the fundamental principles of 



512 



THE JAPAN UNITAEIAN MISSION PABT III 



Morality and of Social Order, to the end that the know- 
ledge thereby gained might become a directing force in 
life. It was eminently fitting that that institution had 
been established. It was the best contribution the Unita- 
rian Mission could make, or ever has made, to the thought 
and life of the Japanese people. 

Then, from the time of this completed organization of 
the Mission, the benevolent purposes of its founders and 
supporters were steadily carried forward, and, I am glad 
to be able to record, with increasing confidence, effective- 
ness, and success. The summary of the ten years of this 
work is far too long for repetition now. I will recall from 
it to-day only a few noteworthy facts. 

1. For instance, as I have already said, there was a 
marked decrease, as the years passed, in the number of 
the Mission's foreign workers. It is to be noted, also, that 
the financial means with which to do our work steadily 
became smaller. Of late years our money has not been 
one-third the amount that was at our disposal during the 
first half of the decade. But I am happy in showing re- 
cord that, w 7 ith one exception, — this exception much to be 
regretted, however, — there has been at no time any de- 
crease or deterioration in the Mission's operations. Then, 
if we set aside some experiences of the first two years when, 
owing to the ignorance and lack of means for knowing 
them on the part of the Mission's directorate, a few un- 
worthy adventurers among the Japanese were given posi- 
tions in our departments, there has been a constant acces- 
sion to the personnel of the mission of honorable, able, and 
devoted Japanese, by whom our great cause has been and 
is much expanded in influence and worth. 

Alongside this fact lies another of notable moment, 
— a constantly growing understanding and respect 
throughout Japan for the disinterestedness and sincer- 
ity of our aim and work. At first, whatever might 
have been the desires and beliefs of the men who invit- 
ed the Unitarian Mission to their country, we were 
the objects of no little hostility and misrepresenta- 
tion. Considerable ill-report was started and fostered 
by some missionaries and by some Budddists con- 



1900 



RECEPTION OF THE MISSION 



513 



cerning Unitarians and Unitarianism. I well remember 
our regret and solicitude over charges laid at the Unitarian 
door. Indeed, we had, in our own way, " A Unitarian 
Controversy " in the Far East. For example, along with 
much else of its kind, from the side of Orthodox Christian- 
ity, a bishop of the highest station declared in a 
published sermon that Unitarians are not Christians, 
and that Christians should have no dealings with 
them. And from the Buddhist side, I remember, it 
was said in a leading magazine, " Unitarianism is most to 
be feared, because, while it is near to Buddhism in object- 
ing to Christ's deity, and in its sympathy with the idea of 
evolution in Humanity, it is still but Christianity colored by 
science. Already Orthodox Christianity fears it, and now 
it has begun to encroach upon the Buddhist field. Why 
cannot Buddhists find some way to stop the Unitarian ad- 
vance?" For quite a time our attempted ministry was 
not separated in public opinion from the aggressive pro- 
pagandism of an ecclesiastical organization and of a domi- 
neering creed. Our sympathetic attitude, our desire to 
co-operate with the religious liberalism of Japan, irrespec- 
tive of church, creed, or political association, were persist- 
ently for a while distorted and abused. But I never lost 
confidence that time would bring justification and wide- 
spread respect. And time has done that. I now can right- 
fully claim that the years have brought both to our Mission 
in large measure. It is long since accusations like those of 
nine and ten years ago have been heard. And some of 
our pronounced and published opponents, especially of the 
Orthodox Christian churches, have become our friends and 
fellow-workers. Among intelligent Buddhists we have 
very many sincere friends and well-wishers. Large num- 
bers of devoted men now clearly understand us. Many 
indorse our presentation of faith and our judgments upon 
matters religious, ethical, and social. 

2. Again, the growth in number and value of the appli- 
ances for our Mission's work make an interesting story. At 
the start these appliances were very few, and were 
empty of visible power. I have told of the purchase of a 
hall in our first year. That building was poorly located 



514 



THE JAPAN ^UNITARIAN MISSION PAET III 



and small Besides, we were its unwelcome occupants 
because it stood within the grounds of a Buddhist temple. 
At length we were practically forced to sell the place to 
the temple authorities. We then hired a building more 
favorably located ; but it was of no form or come- 
liness that either the Japanese people or the other missions 
from Christendom should respect. At the same time our 
pretensions to respect and allegiance were of the boldest 
and highest kinds. We greatly needed a headquarters 
worthy of our name and claims. It was as early as 1891, 
consequently, that I started my plea for money to secure 
for us a fit main station that should be all our own. For 
a long while our American friends did not see the import- 
ance of this addition to the Mission as we in Japan saw it. 

At about the same time I began efforts to procure a 
library for the use of the students of our enlarging College 
The library — chiefly through the sympathetic advocacy of 
a member of the Unitarian women's " National Alliance" 
who had visited Japan and had seen our growing work — 
became the care of Branch Alliances in many of the churches. 
I gratefully remember that the library was soon supplied to 
us in relatively munificent magnitude. 

But all the while the efforts of the Mission were lament- 
ably confined and crippled through our not having a fit- 
ting headquarters building. These facts determined it, there- 
fore, that, if possible, this need should be satisfactorily met. 
The expenditures of the Mission were consequently put 
under the strictest economy, and our balances were hoarded. 
From various sources outside the Mission's ordinary income, 
moneys were slowly gathered and jealously laid by for the 
sake of the longed-for " Unity Hail." A conflagration in 
Tokyo in 1892, destroyed a small lecturing station belong- 
ing to us, and used especially by our Mr. Lawrance. This 
disaster was made the occasion for a special appeal to 
home-friends. At last, home sympathy for our need awoke ; 
and many friends in America, in England, in Japan, and 
even in the Khasi Hills of India, came to our help. Chief 
among our helpers was Rev. George Batchelor, then pastor 
of the " Unitarian Society " in Lowell, Mass. Through 
his appeals large subscriptions toward our building f and 



1900 



YUIITSTJKWAN : SENSHIN GAKTJIN 



515 



were gained ; and, finally, in 1893, when I was here, this 
Association, by direct appropriation, completed the sum re- 
quired for the erection, of the building. Thereby, the 
beautiful and commodious Yuiitsukwan, — "Unity Hall," — 
now the fitting headquarters for the Unitarian work of 
Japan, was built and suitably furnished. The legal owner- 
ship of that property has been — as far as compatible with 
Japanese law — transferred to the American Unitarian As- 
sociation. Much of the money that built the hall did not 
come to us directly through the Association ; but the As- 
sociation is the proper trustee for the Mission's properties ; 
and doubtless the Association will hold this valuable pos- 
session in trust for Japanese Unitarianism until a fitting 
time shall come for transfer to its beneficiaries. 

The dedication of Yuiitsukwan in the spring of 1894 
marked a far advance for the Unitarian cause. Indeed, 
it signalized the most effective act of all done by us during 
the early history of the Mission. Into that building came 
the " First Unitarian Church of Tokyo." There the young 
"Japan Unitarian Association" — at that time hardly more 
than a name, however — was provided with offices and 
other needs. There were gathered, also, the other agencies 
of the Mission, which until then had been working in 
separated parts of the city. Offices and store-rooms were 
supplied to the general " Publication Department," and to 
the vigorous, wide- working " Post Office Mission," whose 
operations have radically affected all the Christian and 
much of Buddhist work in Japan. 

There, also, editorial rooms and storage were given to 
the Unitarian magazine. And finally, but of chief im- 
portance, there were secured satisfactory lecture-rooms for 
the use of the Senshin Gakuins thirty and more students 
and its faculty of seven professors and lectures. In Yui- 
itsukwan also was provided a large fire-proof room for our 
library, of one thousand and more volumes, in which yet 
four thousand more volumes can be easily shelved. To- 
day all these component parts of the Mission, excepting 
the Senshin Gakuin, are protected under the roof of Unity 
Hall, and are in active operation.' The Senshin Gakuin 
to the great regret of many, is for the present quiescent. 



516 



THE JAPAN UNITAEIAN MISSION PART III 



This fact is an effect of the financial stringency that two or 
three years ago embarrassed the home Association. It is 
my hope that in the near future this school will be again in 
movement. For, let me here declare as beyond question, — 
the greatest misfortune among the few that have befallen 
the Japan Mission is the necessity that has led to the closing 
of Senshin Gakuin. In its brief career that institution 
gained a memorable place of influence and respect through- 
out the empire. 

3. The reason why, with the decrease of the original 
membership of the Mission, the activity and effectiveness, 
of its work were not injured, lies in the fact that, notably, 
able and energetic Japanese came to us, and occupied the 
vacated positions. Early in our history, Mr. Jitsunen 
Saji, well known as coming through Buddhism into our 
larger faith and life, associated himself with us. His rep- 
utation as a speaker and thinker were already national 
when, for the time at great personal cost, he professed 
Unitarianism, and began to work with us. Following him 
were Prof. Hajime Onishi, late dean of Senshin Gakuin 
and now president of the "College of Literature ,, of the New 
Imperial University at Kyoto ; Prof. Nobuta Kishimoto, 
graduate of Harvard, and now professor of ethics in the 
"Imperial Normal School ;" Rev. Tomoyoshi Murai, of An- 
dover, now professor of English in the " Foreign Languages 
School " of Japan ; Prof. Isoo Abe, of Hartford Seminary, 
and lately professor in the "Doshisha University ;" and Rev. 
Zennosuke Toyosaki, now professor in the Kohumin Eiga- 
teukai, Tokyo, — all coming to us through Orthodox Christ- 
ianity. Recently, Rev. Kinza Hirai, a leader among the 
progressive Buddhists, and now professor in the Imperial 
Normal School, has taken place with us as one of Japan's 
most ardent and influential Unitarians. In mentioning 
these names, I speak only of gentlemen who have been 
and are in official connection with Unitarian movement. 
Many other persons of prominence have acknowledged 
and commended the Unitarian purpose and work. I 
need not name them unless, probably, Mr. Yoshiwo 
Ogasawara, who is carrying on at his own expense a 
work of distinctive social and moral reform, under the 



1900 THE POSITION GAINED BY THE MISSION 517 



Unitarian name, in a part of the Empire distant from 
Tokyo. 

4. Having now set forth these facts from the Mission's 
records, we can return to the question asked awhile ago, — 
How has Unitarianism met the wishes and needs of the 
Japanese people ? To this question I do not hesitate to 
reply that, all circumstances considered, the American 
Unitarian Association has never started, and it has never 
had under its care, any one interest of greater importance 
or of better return for its support than the Japan Mission. 
Of course, this is not the place for a repetition at length of 
the effects that have marked the Mission's career. But 
there are some generalizing statements about our work 
that are especially appropriate for record at these present 
memorable denominational anniversaries. 

a. First, — 'though the fact is not mentioned first because 
of its priority in degree of worth, — the effect of our Mission 
upon the general Christian mission work in Japan should 
be recalled. In this relation, decidedly potent and far- 
reaching influences have been exercised. Dr. Bitter, the 
author of the standard " History of Protestant Missions in 
Japan," wrote in 1890 : " The numerous ecclesiastical de- 
nominations that are at work in Japan, with their different 
ceremonies and confessions, which not only separate these 
denominations from one another, but also their Japanese 
converts, are a telling demonstration of how necessary it 
is that their traditional dogmas should be broken through, 
in order that it may be clearly known what unity in 
Christ is. In this direction, Unitarianism can be for the 
missions in Japan quite a wholesome leaven, becoming an 
emancipating influence among their immediate discipleship, 
and having already done more than appearances indicate. " 
In remarkable measure, I can say that Dr. Bitter's judg- 
ment has been confirmed. Christianity in Japan is not 
developing in accordance with the Orthodox Christian 
creeds, even under the Orthodox names. It is a common- 
place in popular knowledge that Japanese Christianity is 
continually becoming more and more rationalistic and 
liberal. The Unitarian Mission has not made the Ortho- 
dox missions an object of attack, or even of direct criticism, 



518 



THE JAPAN UNITABIAN MISSION PAKT III 



but it could not hide its light. It has been as a city set 
upon a hill. Of course, the general rationalism of the in- 
tellectual life of the West is felt in the Far East through 
all the channels of intercourse open now throughout the 
world ; but it should not be forgotten that the Unitarian 
Mission in Japan has been an exponent, directly present 
there, in matters of religion and ethics, of the reverent 
rationalism of Christendom. It has consequently exercised 
upon Japanese Christianity characteristic influences. Partic- 
ularly is it true that the methods of Biblical criticism, and 
the interpretation of scientific facts in the terms of religion, 
that are distinctive of modern Unitarianism and have 
marked the operations of our Mission, have spread far and 
wide among the Japanese Christian ministers, and have 
profoundly affected their congregations. These important 
results, it is true, have been only incidental to our work. 
But they are forceful facts, whose working into the future 
cannot be prevented. They will, in time, radically trans- 
form much that has been done by the missions of Christian 
Orthodoxy. 

b. Then, on the other side, that of the forms of religion 
traditional in Japan, our Mission has in various ways 
produced signal effects. I am justified in saying that 
Japanese Buddhism, for example, has received regenerat- 
ing influences from us. Widely spreading in Japan- 
ese Buddhism at present is a historic consciousness 
until lately unfelt. The principles of scientific crit- 
icism ; of comparative theology and ethics ; of the 
spiritual philosophy of the West, have been recog- 
nized, accepted, and are becoming regulative among 
many thoughtful and solicitous disciples of Buddha, as 
something never before known in Buddhism. This fact 
has been frankly referred, by some Buddhist scholars, 
directly to Unitarian speakers and to our literature. 

c. In 1896, there took place the first " Universal Eeligious 
Conference " in Japan. Its sessions were fully described in 
the Christian 'Register at the time. Shinto, Buddhist, 
Confucian, and Christian delegates were present, and took 
part in the deliberations at this important gathering. I, as 
the superintendent of the Unitarian Mission, was the only 



1900 SUMMARY OF THE MISSION'S INFLUENCES 519 



foreigner present. The Conference was brought about 
naturally through much ill-report as well as good-will. 
Those who took part in it were all men well known. 
They were in considerable measure men of influence in 
some one of the denominations of the four forms of religion 
prevalent in Japan. Memorably, in that conference, 
Christianity was recognized and honored by Shinto and 
Buddhist priests, and by Confucian scholars. Men were 
present there in friendly fellowship with Christians who, 
in their own youth, had seen the Christian Cross trampled 
upon, and who had taken part in public denunciation of 
Christ. In joining that conference, the Christians them- 
selves had accepted as a truth what most of their foreign 
teachers had either not taught them or had not known ; 
namely, a real all-Fatherhood of God and a universal Bro- 
therhood of Man. By means of that Conference, followers of 
the traditional faiths of Japan and of the alien Christianity 
received a new inspiration. They entered together upon 
the privileges of a common freedom of mind and heart. 
That Conference is memorable in Japan's religious history. 
I trust in your generous judgment as I repeat the words 
of one of its most prominent participants, — his saying to 
me : " Had it not been for the Unitarian Mission, this 
Conference would probably not have taken place. You 
may regard it as largely your work." 

d. But these are not the only satisfactory results that 
have followed the presence of our Mission in Japan. 
Unitarianism receives now, as it received ten and fifteen 
years ago, the high commendations of some of the prominent 
statesmen, publicists, educators, and economists of the 
Empire, as the form of religious faith and practice that the 
people most need. I speak of their judgment, not of their 
personal allegiance to our or to any kind of religion. 
Among the Japanese, as among all peoples, praise and 
practice do not always go together. In Japan, as else- 
where, many causes operate to control the conduct of 
public men that do not affect persons in private life. Yet 
it has come to my knowledge that several of the prominent 
statesmen of Japan have recently been seriously deliberat- 
ing over the advisability of a personal public profession of 



520 



THE JAPAN UMTABIAN MISSION PAET III 



the Unitarian faith and of association with us. And I am 
glad in this connection to report that not long ago one of 
them, a party leader, Mr. Saburo Shimada, has become a 
member of our Tokyo church, In fact, never so much as 
now has Unitarianism had in Japan such well-grounded 
expectation of acceptance and support from men high in 
place and power. 

But I must bring this record to a close. I will only say 
farther that, in resigning the charge so long intrusted to 
me, I do so happy with the knowledge that, whereas ten 
years ago my colleagues and I were practically alone, 
misunderstood, and opposed in the midst of the multitudes 
of the Mikado's Empire, I have left Japan as one in a 
strong and active group of Unitarians and friends native 
in the land ; that Unitarianism has now many ardent 
Japanese advocates and supporters ; and that it is in the 
care of, and is the inspiration of, an organized " Japan Uni- 
tarian Association," which will henceforward carry on and 
extend the work that ten years ago only a small and 
unknown company of foreigners was willing to do and 
had begun to do. Yuiitsukwan, our " Unity Hall," the sign 
of the love of many people, in America, in Europe, and in 
Asia, for our sublime and free faith and hope in religion, 
and of their friendship for the far-away Japanese, stands 
in Tokyo an object of Japanese pride and hope. And 
there, I am confident through Japanese devotion the 
Unitarian cause will hereafter be sacredly upheld, — the 
cause of pure religion published and served, as an inscript- 
ion on the wall above the Hall's platform proclaims, — for 
the sake of " Truth, Righteousness, and Peace " among the 
people. 

In bidding farewell a few weeks ago to the Unitarians 
of that far-away land, I said from the platform of Unity 
Hall : "Let religion, as faith and love toward God and 
man, be the one encompassing and all-pervading power 
guiding the words and deeds that shall have place under 
this roof. As my parting counsel, I can commend to you 
nothing of such high and lasting worth for everything 
that shall here bear the name of Unitarianism as the bond 
of union of the American Unitarians, — that teaching of 



1902 



RELIGION IN JAPAN TO-DAY 



521 



Jesus of Nazareth by wbich " practical religion' ' is summed 
up as ' 6 love to God and iove to man." 

Confident, therefore, that sincere efforts will be made to 
fulfil this highest counsel, I have passed my charge over 
to the care of the Japanese. I part from my Japanese 
friends and from my long-held work among them with 
more regret than I dare attempt to put into words. But 
it is best for the sake of this service of our faith and love 
that it should be transferred now to those to whom your 
Mission carried it. It is time that the Japanese should 
feel in every way their own responsibility, and should 
have full opportunity to make perfect their impulse toward 
self-reliance. And it is my sincere prayer that the Japan 
Unitarian Association may become the minister of a faith 
and life that shall spread farther and farther, and more 
deeply, in the life of that wonderful people of the Far 
East ; until the whole nation shall become conscious of a 
divine calling, and shall act worthy their birthright, as 
men among brother-men, and under a clear consciousness 
of God, as God's children. 



IV. 

Two years after my return to America, in April 1902, 
I contributed to The American Journal of Theology of the 
Chicago University, by invitation of its editors, an article 
in answer to a question proposed by them. The essay 
was a reply practically comprehensive at the time. As 
a whole it is still a measurably satisfactory statement. 
I reproduce it here, asking indulgence for the repetition, in 
it of a few historical notes previously given in the address 
on Japan's " Eeligious Problem. " 

The Pkesent Eeligious Condition of Japan. 

It is difficult to give an adequate answer to the quest- 
ion : " What is the present condition of the Japanese 
people so far as it involves their religious faith and life ? " 



522 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PART III 



Such is the movement of affairs in Japan to-day that for 
a satisfactory reply large knowledge of Japanese history is 
needed ; also some acquaintance with the psychical charac- 
teristics distinctive of the people ; especially must there be 
an intelligent, sympathetic, justly discriminating judgment 
used among the effects of many of the alien influences 
operative in the Empire during the half-century just passed. 
Fifty years ago a like inquiry could have been easily 
satisfied. At that time Society had been wrought into a 
comparatively stable organization. Politically, industrial- 
ly, socially, religiously, the ways of the fathers were, with 
but little divergence, the ways of the children. Notably 
the religious condition of the people as a whole could have 
been described with approximate exactness. The way for 
our inquiry may be made clearer if at the outset we recol- 
lect somewhat the Japan of the middle of the Nineteenth 
Century. 

From near the beginning of the Seventeenth Century 
until then, the " Empire of the Eising Sun " had been 
practically a land shut up. By government edict, " so 
long as the sun should shine/' it had been commanded 
that no foreigners should enter the country or natives 
leave it. This enforced seclusion began after a century's 
portentous intercourse with some commercial and ec- 
clesiastical emissaries sent from the south of Europe. The 
peril of national ruin under the political-religious aggres- 
sions of the foreigners seemed then to the authorities to be 
a danger they dared not ignore. In 1624, a proclamation 
of banishment for all strangers, excepting a few Dutchmen 
at Nagasaki and the Chinese, was issued ; all navigation 
other than that of coasting was forbidden to the Japanese 
themselves. Thirteen years later the Christians remaining, 
of the multitude of converts effected by the labors of the 
Roman Catholic missionaries of the Sixteenth Century, 
made desperate by the persecutions which continually be- 
set them, arose in rebellion. They were soon conquered. 
Before the middle of the Seventeenth Century " this evil 
sect " from the West had seemingly been crushed out of 
existence, and the plantings of the foreigners in the 
country's politics and social life had been eradicated. 



1902 



japan's religious heritage 



523 



The people settled down to following undisturbed the 
traditions, ways, and institutions of their ancestors, to find 
in these, thenceforward, the true scope for their life, and to 
perfect these for the future welfare of the nation. 

During the next two hundred years Japan rested under a 
profound political peace. Socially, the system of the fathers 
was firmly established and elaborated ; religiously, the 
faiths dominant before the invasion of Christianity were 
interwrought more and more into a homogeneous body of 
thought and a cult for the life. In this long seclusion the 
Japanese people became quiescent under one body of law, 
of custom, and of religious faith and worship. 

This is generalizing broadly. The national seclusion was 
not absolutely unbroken during the two centuries. Nor 
were industry and art, philosophy and religious creed, 
wholly without change except that of development from 
within. Taking into consideration, however, all the in- 
fluences from the outer world which may have en- 
tered Japan then, allowing for all that may be 
noted as social and religious progress, the period of 
the Tokugawa Shogunate, these notwithstanding, is 
to be regarded as a time of national quiet, and, for 
the larger part, of popular unification and establishment 
under the faiths and customs of the past. 

What was especially distinctive of this ancient heritage ? • 
A religious principle. Kegulative of all generalization con- 
cerning Japan, until within the passing generation, should 
be the fact that the political system of the Empire, the 
social order of the people, and their intercourse with man- 
kind rest ultimately upon the faith that the Imperial family 
is of divine descent, and that the person of the Emperor is 
the earthly representative of the gods who have made 
them and their home their care. Japanese history emerges 
from tradition early in the Christian centuries. Before the 
Sixth Century most of the tribes of southern and central 
Japan, conquered by invaders from the southwest, had 
become one nation with their conquerors, all held together 
by loyalty and reverence for their common ruler as a per- 
son of divine ancestry, clothed with the authority of " hea- 
ven." The " goddess of the sun " was pre-eminent among 



524 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PABT III 



the celestial beings as ancestress of the Imperial family. 
The " creator " of the islands of Japan — lands central in 
the universe — was " the father of the sun-goddess/' What- 
ever there was of organic Japan in the sixth Christian 
century had its bond and motive power in reverence for 
the reigning Emperor and in worship of his ancestors. 
Associated with this devotion there was an aboriginal re- 
ligious cult which had for its objects of worship myriads of 
persons and of personifications of natural things and 
phenomena, but this mythology and its ritual were always 
subordinate to the religion which gathered about the 
divine Emperor and his ancestry. 

At the close of the Sixth Century the Empire under- 
went its first great historic revolution. From that time 
civilized Japan dates its existence ; the Japan of popu- 
larized letters, of written law, of science, of art, of formal 
and confessional religion. Buddhism, the aggressive 
missionary religion of the Orient, entering the country 
in the year 552, soon secured a permanent foothold. 
Before a hundred years had passed, it had gained the faith 
of both the Imperial court and the larger part of the popu- 
lace. But Buddhism did not affect radically or harmfully 
the fundamental national principle. Shotoku Taishi, an 
imperial prince, known as principal founder and promoter 
■ of the invading Buddhism, wrote in his " Laws " : " To 
the commands of the Emperor men must be duly obedient. 
The prince must be looked upon as the heaven and his 
subjects be regarded as the earth/' The native religion, 
called thenceforward Shinto — " the Way of the Gods " — 
was in large part taken into, and transfigured by, the new 
faith and worship. The aboriginal pantheon was accepted 
bv the missionaries of the Buddha. Some of the ancient 
gods of Shinto were proclaimed to be but deities known in 
India and revealed under other names in Japan. The 
Imperial traditions were made the care of the guardians of 
the new faith. 

Many important political and social changes accom- 
panied this religious revolution. The institutions and 
methods of China were in large measure imitated by rulers 
and people. The Imperial administration became oligar- 



1902 SHINTO : BUDDHISM ! CONFUCIANISM 525 



chic. The Emperors gradually withdrew from active 
direction of the state. At length the Imperial person was 
lost to public view in a mysterious seclusion, from w r hich it 
did not reappear until within the past century, — 1868. 
Yet, even in these changes, the ancient faith and funda- 
mental principle of the nation did not perish or suffer 
acknowledged harm. The Shogunate was established in 
the Twelfth Century Thereby an Imperial subject became 
in fact monarch of the Empire. For about six hundred 
years this practical usurpation of the Emperor's powers 
continued undisturbed. The families holding the office 
were different at times, but the office was the same. Even 
under the Shogunate, however, no attempt was made to 
weaken in theory the one divine bond which from time 
immemorial had held together the political and social 
structure. The primeval principle remained supreme over 
the Empire. 

Nor did the wide spread of Confucianism about three 
hundred years ago among the scholars and upper 
classes injure the ancient Imperial dignity. On the con- 
trary, Confucianism, through its indifference to specu- 
lation on theological matters, had no conflict with either 
institutional Buddhism, or Shinto doctrine and rite. Rather, 
it strengthened the traditional bond between the invisible 
Emperor and his realm by means of its own fundamental 
tenets of unquestioning submission to parents and to rulers. 
Its disciples did much positively to perpetuate among the 
common people the ancient principle of their State. So, 
then, the course of the Japanese people, through all its 
vicissitudes, had gone steadily forward under faith in 
the divine descent and authority of the empire's Ruler. 
Shinto, Buddhism, and Confucianism all gave this faith 
their support ; and when Commodore Perry, fifty years 
ago, broke down the barriers raised between the Mikado's 
land and the other countries of the world, they were in full 
co-operation under the Tokugawa Shogunate, guiding the 
moral and religious life of the people. A Japanese, emi- 
nent to-day as a teacher of philosophy and Christianity, 
writing of the time when his country's present era began, 
says : 



526 



THE JAPAN TJNITAEIAN MISSION PAET III 



My earlier education was almost entirely in the hands of my father 
and an old Buddhist priest. The priest taught me many Confucian 
books, being a good Confucian scholar himself. It may sound strange 
that a Buddhist priest should teach the Confucian writings. But in 
Japan the religions live on good terms with one another. Our people 
draw their spiritual nutrition from Shintoism, Buddhism, and Confu- 
cianism. These systems seem to forget their discrepancies and to form 
a sort of religious composite, each supplying the deficiencies of the 
others. Shintoism furnishes the object of worship; Confucianism offers 
the rules of life; and Buddhism supplies the way of future salvation. 
In every household there were visible representations of these three 
religions: the Confucian books; the " Buddha case" containing the 
wooden tablets with the Buddhistic names of the deceased ancestors 
of the family ; and the " god-shelf "dedicated to the sacred symbols 
and representations of Shinto gods. My father who taught me the 
books of Confucius, who taught me to worship the sun, the moon, and 
the stars, often took me to the famous Buddhist temples and Shinto 
shrines of the neighborhood. 

This is a fair picture of the religious condition of a 
Japanese household of fifty years ago. It represents a 
whole nation as placid and homogeneous under faiths 
dominated by one principle hallowed by ancient tradition. 

Even the one disturbing and portentous force which had 
its beginnings and rapidly, though quietly, gained power 
among the student classes during the Tokugawa Shogunate 
was generated through devotion to the old faith in the 
Imperial sanctity and authority. The Tokugawa era 
was the time when a perfected feudalism as its mode of 
government had harmonized, or suppressed, the conflicting 
local ambitions which from the Twelfth to the Seventeenth 
Century had involved the people in constantly recurring 
civil wars. The heads of the many clans, composing the 
empire, the daimyos, deprived of means or opportunity for 
political agitation, gave their interest to other things. 
Some of them devoted their time and wealth to the en- 
couragement of learning and the arts. Japan's distinctive 
civilization was at high flood. But the usurping Shogun 
had become so great and so evident a ruler that the 
Emperor in the popular imagination had almost lost reality 
as a human monarch It is said that at the beginning of 
the Tokugawa Shogunate the common people scarcely knew 
the names of their Emperors. Within a hundred years 
however, a Japanese " revival of learning " took place. 

Under the patronage of the Prince of Mito, some scholars 



1902 SIGNS OF THE MODERN REVOLUTION 527 

having familiarized themselves with the writings of the 
ancients, compiled a History of Japan. The effect of this 
work was to turn a large part of public attention directly 
to the fact that the Emperor is the true source of civil au- 
thority ; and to arouse the feeling that he should be lord, not 
in theory only, but in act, of his divine domain. This revivi- 
fication in popular thought of the ancient principle of the 
State, increasing the more strongly in the absence of dis- 
tracting influences, grew steadily during the Eighteenth 
Century. In fact, it is held now that " the real author of 
the movement which culminated in the revolution of 
1868 " was the scholarly Prince of Mito and his student 
followers. The religious effect of the Mito historical move- 
ment was the formation of a group of scholars in the latter 
part of the Eighteenth Century devoted to the study of 
Shinto as it prevailed in the far past, and to the beginning 
of an effort to restore a " purified " Shinto to popular service. 
Naturally, consequent upon the labors of the historians and 
the "pure Shintoists," the person of the "Son of Heaven" 
became more a reality in popular thought ; and the in- 
fluence of those who were urging the restoration of the 
Emperor to active sovereignty became increasingly wider 
and more powerful. Signs of the coming revolution 
against the Shogunate were evident even before the 
American fleet entered Yedo bay in the summer of 
1853. 

Looking back over what has been noted, we see that the 
career of the Japanese people from the earliest times to the 
middle of the last century, through all the changes which 
befell it, — first, by the incoming of the religion of the 
Buddha ; then, by the invasion of Chinese civilization ; by 
the transition of the form of government to that of an 
oligarchy ; through the struggles of rival clans, ambitious 
of the seat of power, for possession of the Emperor's 
person ; through the rise and overthrow of the many 
Shoguns who were autocrats of the Empire for six centuries ; 
through the dominion over scholarly Japan of the philoso- 
phy of Confucius ; and finally, in the revival of " pure 
Shinto " — through all these things we see this people 
guided by the traditional principle of the descent of their 



528 



THE JAPAN UNITAEIAN MISSION PABT III 



Sovereign from the gods, clothed with Divine authority as 
lord spiritual and temporal of the Empire. 

But during the past fifty years this condition of the 
people, comparatively so simple and easy of comprehen- 
sion, has become extremely complex and difficult of clear 
description. Commodore Perry's mission resulted in the 
opening of the secluded nation to free intercourse with the 
other peoples of the world. The serenely, simply living and 
thinking Japanese became the objects of the varied and 
tumultuous thought and life of America and Europe. 
Stimulated by that, the revived native Imperialism 
led the nation into open revolt against the Shogunate, and 
brought to pass the restoration of the Emperor to actual 
sovereignty. But more than this : under the intrusion of 
the agencies of the alien civilization of the West, the 
unique political, social, and religious order which had been 
practically perfected in the Tokugawa era was turned into 
hopeless confusion ; even the fundamental principle of the 
State was subjected to the gravest peril. The present 
invasion from Europe is very different from that which 
was repulsed at the opening of the Seventeenth Century. 
Then faith was arrayed against faith ; the " Vicar of 
Christ" against the "Son of Heaven." In to-day's 
meeting of the West with the East, modern science has 
confronted old faith ; internationalism has opposed national 
isolation. Through the barriers which were broken down 
fifty years ago, the land of Shinto, Buddhist, and Con- 
fucian tradition has been entered by demonstrated and 
progressing knowledge. Inventive mechanics, international 
commerce, individualistic rationalism in literature, the arts, 
and ethics, and, of momentous import, the Christian 
religion, not only in its Roman Catholic, but also in 
manifold Protestant forms, and much else under the 
stimulus of rationalism in religion and in philosophy, have 
entered there, facing with inevitable antagonism the in- 
stitutions and ideas of that far-eastern civilization ; meeting, 
with no effective defense before it, the ages-old faith of 
the nation in the Mikado as the " Son of Heaven." 

Forty-eight years ago the first treaty, opening the 
" Land of the Rising Sun " to free intercommunication 



1902 MEIJI OR " ENLIGHTENED PEACE" 529 

with a foreign country, was signed ; thirty-four years ago 
the 1 'Son of Heaven" was delivered from his thousand 
years' seclusion in his palace at Kyoto and restored in full 
visibility to absolute monarchy. Note the sequel. 

The return of the Emperor to visible rule had hardly 
been secured, when an astounding act, professedly of the 
Sovereign's own initiation and choice, took place. It was 
nothing less than a popularization of the ancient govern- 
ment. The monarchy w T as divested of its absolutism. 
The very champions of the revolution which had been 
consummated against the Shogunate, in the name and by 
virtue of the divine authority of the Emperor, were charged 
by Imperial mandate to accept for the nation many of the 
political, industrial, commercial, educational, and other of 
the aims and methods of the aggressive civilization of the 
Occident. 

The restored Imperial reign was named Meiji, "Enlight- 
ened Peace." By Imperial authority there was decreed for 
the Empire a constitution, a parliament, popular suffrage, 
schools for the teaching and development of the sciences, 
and visibility for, and approach to, the Imperial person. 
Yet, as the course of events soon proved, these things could 
not be done without thereby laying the traditional " divine 
authority '' upon an altar for sacrifice by the very forces 
thus called into action. With the giving of the Constitution 
the Emperor forever divested himself of the exercise of 
absolute power. With the establishment of a parliament 
the direction of the government naturally became thence- 
forward a resultant of the conflicts of parties. With 
popular suffrage and the exercise of fall civil and religious 
liberty assured them by the constitution, a new conscious- 
ness of independence and of personal power was awakened 
among the people. With popular education based upon 
the world's histories, literatures, philosophies, and the 
exact sciences, the ages-long revered mythology and the 
Imperial tradition were exposed to obliteration from the 
minds of the common people, or, if not that, at least to 
radical metamorphoses. In its new age Japan has quickly 
passed under the influences of the whole world's develop- 
ing life. To this condition the subjects of the ancient 



530 



THE JAPAN UNITAKIAN MISSION PART III 



" Empire of the Son of Heaven " have been brought. 
They are thus witnesses of, and partakers in, the working 
of forces which may bring ultimate deliverance, but which, 
for the present, are like some Samson bringing down huge 
confusion and ruin. 

It is impossible for the peoples of the West to ap- 
preciate, or to understand fully, Japan's era of Meiji. 
In Europe and America governments and peoples 
change. But they change chiefly through the methods of 
evolution. Among us of the West the processes of politi- 
cal, and religious readjustment are as a rule slow and 
comparatively easy, In Japan a revolution has been 
made, suddenly, and, for the most part, by means of 
forces altogether alien. Throughout the nation, conse- 
quently, though new aims have been distinctly chosen and 
definite methods followed, there are yet widespread con- 
fusion, constantly recurring mistakes, much tentative effort, 
perplexing uncertainty, apparent fickleness, impulsive ad- 
vance and reaction, irrational and absurd attempts to as- 
sociate old and new, grotesque lpixing of things past and 
present. Especially is this record of the effects of the 
advance of the new age true of the movements of religious 
faith and practice. In Religion, probably more than in 
any other popular interest, these effects appear. New 
faiths, urged and supported by enthusiastic zeal, ready to 
attack for the sake of conquest, met by conservatism eager 
for defense under the instinct of self-preservation, result in 
a condition of thought and life which is in a high degree 
difficult of comprehension and of intelligible presentation. 
In answering an inquiry into the present religious condition 
of Japan, therefore, we are obliged to deal with both the 
ancient and the m'odern faiths operative there as involved 
in a general confusion, in a complex interaction of many 
forces which are as yet tentative in their issues. Let us 
pass in review the main elements in our problem. 

1. Shinto. — What has become of this ancient bearer of 
Japan's religious faith and aim ? One of the most power- 
ful movements connected with the overthrow of the Shc- 
gunate and with the Imperial restoration, we remember, had 
for,, its- object the return of Shinto, purified, to dominion 



1902 SHINTO AT THE PRESENT TIME 



531 



in the popular mind and its rehabilitation as the religion 
of the State. To this end, thirty years ago, Buddhism 
was deprived, by the renewed Imperialism, of government 
patronage and support. From the year 1871 to 1874 the 
official forces were employed in confiscating for regenerated 
uses the old Shinto shrines, together with their sources of 
revenue, which, in the combination known as Bydbn, had 
fallen under Buddhist control. In 1872 the " Depart- 
ment of Beligion " decreed the restoration of "pure Shinto " 
to a dominant place as a religious faith and ritual. It 
issued for the observance of all Japanese this summary of 
Shinto principles :— 

1. Thou shalt honor the gods and love thy country. 

2. Thou shalt clearly understand the principle of heaven and the 
duty of man. 

3. Thou shalt revere the Mikado as thy sovereign and obey the 
will of his court. 

For some time this effort to make Shinto regnant as the 
popular religion was carried forward. But the attempt, 
as made, failed. As a formal organization for the expression 
of the religious life of the people it could not be made to 
take the place which Buddhism had secured. There are 
many Shinto shrines cared for at the present day. There 
are now, among the lower classes, two sub-sects of Shinto, 
called the Tenri-kyo and the Bemmoji-kyo, whose gods 
are those of the ancient pantheon ; whose rites are describ- 
ed as grossly superstitious ; yet whose service to the 
poorest and lowest classes of the people is said to be bene- 
ficial in various ways. Certain dignified Shinto bodies 
exist, but as religious factors they have no especial signi- 
ficance. A recent judgment passed upon them in a native 
periodical is that " they are all in a degenerate state. 
Much is not to be expected of them. 5, The old ritual has 
official status as a state ceremonial. It is observed regu- 
larly in the Emperor's household. Imperial messengers 
are dispatched annually to do reverence at such historic 
shrines as those of Ise. These shrines are also the goals of 
pilgrimage for hundreds of thousands of the common 
people. There, reverence is made to the Divine ancestors 
and their Imperial descendants ; and charms and relics are 



532 



THE JAPAN UNITABIAN MISSION PART III 



purchased for treasure at home. It would be a mistake, 
however, to regard these pilgrims as avowed or exclusive 
Shintoists. By far the larger number of them are Bud- 
dhists by religious profession. 

In fact, Shintoism is no longer to be counted among 
the forms of religion. Within the past three years, 
by government direction, it has disappeared from the 
category of religion. It is now to be considered specific- 
ally a State ceremonial, maintained as the vehicle 
of the Imperial tradition. Placed outside the group of ac- 
knowledged forms of religion, it will be free from the 
embarrassments arising from legislative supervision of the 
religious denominations. Its maintenance henceforward 
is to be attempted, so it is said, chiefly for its possible 
political effect. The Imperial tradition needs, now as never 
before, defense from the dangers which are gathering fact 
around it. Arinori Mori one of Japan's greatest new-era 
leaders said, in the early days of the Eestoration : " As to 
the political use of Shinto, the State is quite right in 
turning it to account in support of the absolute govern- 
ment which exists in Japan. 5 ' At the present day it is 
well for those in authority to seek to safeguard as much as 
possible the Imperial household from the perils which the 
future may disclose. 

Nevertheless, there is a sense in which Shinto still 
exists. This must be given its value in any valid consider- 
ation of the religious condition of the people. Shinto 
no longer has official recognition as a religion, but 
its influence remains in the instincts and habits of the 
people, animating and dominating their lives as Japanese. 
Shinto more than any other power lies back of that 
patriotism which is unique in this nation, — the absorbing 
devotion to Emperor and land, named Yamato damashii 
(" soul of Japan It is this form of patriotism which 
has directed, indeed controlled, the Japanese national life 
throughout the changes here described. It is patriotism 
dominant over life. A prominent writer, only within the 
past year, has said : 

Yamato damashii is immortal. All teachers of morality and re- 
ligion must endeavor to nourish this spirit. This is the very essence of 



1902 BUDDHISM AT THE PRESENT TIME 533 



religion. Whether Christianity flourishes or not, whether Buddhism 
retains its hold on the nation or not, are matters of little moment so 
long or the nation is conscious that it has a worthy ideal to worship 
and to carry into practice. 

It is this very Yamato damashii which has exposed the 
Japanese in recent years to much criticism, and to much 
misunderstanding also. This people can easily be made 
fanatically patriotic. Their pride in their land and in their 
own success is excessive. More than the world yet knows, 
their patriotism has stimulated them in their present 
assimilation of the agencies and powers of Western civiliza- 
tion. The instinct of self-preservation, rather than love of 
Occidental thought and life, has supported them in their 
present change from the old to the new. It is claimed 
that there is no term for " virtue " in the Japanese 
language, except one whose meaning is " public spirit." 
A writer in a prominent magazine has lately assumed 
that " it is Japan's duty now, in view of the acts of 
the so-called 1 Christian ' nations in China in vindication 
of so-called ' Christian ' rights, to stand forth before 
the world as the champion of humanity." Another 
writer ranges the rationalist Yukichi Fukuzawa, who 
died a year ago, alongside the Christian Niishima, 
the founder of the Doshisha University, as a typical 
Japanese, with the judgment: " In one thing they were 
supremely alike — and that one thing was their exalted 
pride." However much, therefore, the Japanese of the 
present day have lost their ancient faith in Shinto as 
their religion, it yet abides throughout the nation, 
animating the intense patriotism named the " soul of 
Japan." No estimate of the religious condition which 
ignores this supreme force can be correct. 

2. Buddhism— Turning to Buddhism,, we enter a do- 
main in which whatever there is of professed religion in 
Japan finds at present its largest and most real expression. 
The disestablishment of Buddhism thirty years ago did not 
make it impotent as the popular religion. It is to-day, 
more than it has ever been in modern times, the acknow- 
ledged faith of the people. For a while, in the early years 
of the present era, it seemed to be in serious peril of a pop- 
ular disaffection. Many of its temples fell into disuse 



534 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PART III 



and decay. Its priests suffered greatly from personal pov- 
erty. Seemingly the prophecy might have been justified 
that the faith had lost all real vitality ; that it was falling, 
never to rise again, however much its adherents might 
strive to gain a footing for it. But ages-long custom 
guarded it, and the Yamato damashii rallied many to its 
support. Gradually, especially during the last twenty 
years, the appeals of the priests, aided by a reactionary 
nationalism taking place then, aroused a widespread loyal- 
ty to the old faith. In place of the Governments financial 
patronage, increasingly large money contributions were 
secured in the parish communities. Many of the old 
temples have been revived. Numerous new temples — 
two or more of them upon a scale of size and magnificence 
of decoration equal to any of past centuries — have been 
erected and dedicated. An intelligent zeal has taken pos- 
session of the governing bodies of some of the leading 
sects. Among statesmen, publicists, and politicians, to 
say the least, an active, though only formal, support of the 
faith has appeared. Even so pronounced a modern 
leader and religious progressionist as Yukichi Fukuzawa, 
in some respects the most influential single personage 
among those who have been advancing Japan's " new 
age," was buried only a year ago with Buddhist rites. 

Certainly, it is evident to-day that Buddhism has 
not succumbed to the blow it received by its disestablish- 
ment. Among the signs of continued vitality are these : 
Many of the leaders of some of the most powerful sects 
are m aking energetic endeavors to arouse their followers 
to engage in missionary propagandism. " An extremely 
influential association " of the chief sects, called the 
" Eastern Asia Buddhist Society " has recently been form- 
ed for the purpose of " propagating by all means at com- 
mand the doctrines of the Buddha. Acknowledging that 
the upper and middle classes have grown skeptical or in- 
different to the faith, the new association has determined 
to seek to influence high and low alike ; to suppress the 
rivalries of the sects and to unite all in a common mission.' ' 
Further, the Society makes it a fundamental principle that 
Buddhism shall be accepted as the religious foundation of 



1902 BUDDHISM AND "NEW BUDDHISM " 535 



the Orient, satisfying its needs and guiding its develop- 
ment, just as Christianity underlies the social and political 
life of the peoples of the West. The Association assumes 
that Buddhism is as characteristic of the East as Christ- 
ianity is of the West. A central office for this movement 
has been opened ; plans have been made for extensive 
preaching tours and general missionary work, passing 
gradually into Korea and China. There is to be, also, a 
large publication of popular doctrinal and practical religious 
literature. 

Then, to be noticed here, is the proposed work of 
the new "Imperial Eastern Association," This society 
has undertaken the translation into Japanese of the Tibet, 
Mongolian, and Manchurian Buddhist scriptures. This 
work is of enormous magnitude and will be of immense 
value in the development and interpretation of Northern 
Buddhism. In addition to these signs of the revived 
energy of orthodox Buddhism there are also vigorous 
movements in progress having for their end a Buddhist 
reformation. Many Buddhist scholars have set before 

mi 

themselves the task of dealing with modern knowledge 
and ideals much as the Buddhists of the Seventh and 
Eighth centuries dealt with the traditions and aims of 
Shinto. They are seeking to absorb and to metamorphose 
modern science and philosophy in accordance with Bud- 
dhist dogma and practice. There is also a hopeful 
agitation named "New Buddhism/' widespread among 
young men, especially among the students of the higher 
Buddhist colleges. It attempts to transform the old faith 
into what may be styled an optimistic pantheism. It 
aims, indeed, to bring about co-operation between 
Buddhism and a rationalized Christianity, and there- 
by to lead in the religious future of the Empire. 

A survey of the condition of Buddhism in Japan thus 
shows it to be still the popularly acknowledged religion, so 
far as there is religion in the nation. Among the lower 
classes and in the rural districts it is still, in large measure, 
what it was in its days of least questioned supremacy ; it is 
adhered to generally among the middle and upper classes, 
to say the least, much as Roman Catholicism is held by 



536 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PART III 



like classes in Italy and in France ; ifc exhibits many signs 
of endeavor to reform errors which have developed within 
it ; particularly is it arousing to new efforts to further its 
extension by means of new missionary propagandism. 
The movement to reshape it under the ideals of absolute 
religion may have much prophetic value. 

Yet, we may not turn from this part of our re- 
view without observing also that opposing the popular 
faith there is a widely extended skepticism and indifferent- 
ism, constantly increasing among the educated classes. 
Moreover, although Buddhism is to-day better equipped 
for the conflict than it was thirty years ago, it has before 
it an increasing struggle with Christianity, which will be 
the real test of its vitality. We shall return to this coming 
crisis later. 

3. Confucianism.— The discipleship of Confucius need 
not detain us in our review. Confucianism has no longer a 
place of noticeable importance in the religious development 
of the Empire. A few of the older scholars make it a 
favorite study. Its influence remains with some force in 
both the political and social realms. It aids in sustaining 
the national virtues — reverence for the Emperor and for 
parents. It is still evident in the position in which woman 
remains as man's pronounced inferior, and in the adjust- 
ment of certain of the family relationships. But, as a 
confessed code for the life, it has become a relic, and is a 
decreasing power. Japan is rapidly emancipating itself 
from China. Confucianism has already, in the main, but 
a historical interest. 

4. Christianity. — We can, therefore, pass directly 
from Buddhism to a consideration of Christianity. We 
approach here a novel region in Japanese history, but one, 
to us observers in the Christian West, of immediate and 
profound interest. Christianity is, by inheritance, our own 
form of religion. The Japanese generally look upon it as 
the faith which the people of the West are seeking to im- 
pose upon them to the exclusion of whatever faiths they 
have received from their own past. Let us, in our look at 
Christianity in the Mikado's land, observe just what its 
reception and career there have been, whatever may be 



1902 



CHRISTIANITY IN JAPAN 



537 



our own wishes, prejudices, or interest. No real gain either 
for truth or for the promotion of our cause can be made 
otherwise. We shall attempt to give impartial witness. 
We must then to begin with admit that, as a factor in the 
present religious condition of Japan, Christianity, accepted 
as organized in churches and in professedly Christian 
institutions, shows but small results. In a population of 
forty-seven millions, approximately one hundred and 
twenty thousand confessed believers in Christianity — 
these chiefly among the middle and lower classes — do not 
constitute a very considerable group. {These figures are 
for the year 1902. They would have to be much 
increased at the present date, 1914). The forty and 
more millions of Buddhists by birth and education might 
well afford to ignore the hundred and twenty thousand 
acknowledged Christians, three-fifths of whom are adher- 
ents of the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches, 
were it not for other considerations than those of number 
and station. But Christianity is the form of religion pre- 
vailing among those peoples whose intrusion brought the 
political order of the Empire to ruin fifty years ago ; — 
in contact with whom New Japan, in almost all its 
characteristics, has come into being and has been taking 
shape. For reasons connected with this fact, the place 
which the religion from the West holds among the people 
of Japan is of extraordinary importance and value. 

It is to be remembered that Christianity, as organized, 
has been the bete noire of the Japanese government and 
people ever since its tragic expulsion from their land in 
1637 until within very recent years. For some time, even 
after the " Restoration of 1868," all Japanese were for- 
bidden by Imperial edict, and at the risk of severest punish- 
ment, to profess the faith of this " corrupt sect." 
Throughout the country denunciation of Christianity, post- 
ed on the official bulletin boards, was familiar to every 
reader. Even in Tokyo, the capital city, in 1868, the 
following law was to be seen in many public places : 
" The evil sect called Christian is strictly prohibited. Sus- 
picious persons should be reported to the proper officers, 
and rewards will be given. " These anti-Christian edicts 



538 



THE JAPAN UNITABIAN MISSION PART III 



were not removed until in the year 1873. Thus powerful 
was the memory of what was believed to be the political 
peril of the attempt made by the Eoman Catholic mission- 
aries to conquer the land in the Seventeenth Century. Now, 
this legal antagonism has ceased. There is a constitutional 
guarantee for freedom for all in all forms of religious belief. 
Legally, to-day Christianity may have free course among 
all the Mikado's subjects. As early in the present era as 
1859, the Christian missionaries re-entered Japan. They 
were but few then. When the public ban against the 
faith was removed a decade later, many appeared. Now, 
there are hundreds of foreign preachers of the Western 
faith in its varying forms — Eoman Catholic, Greek Ortho- 
dox, Protestant, and Rationalistic — living in many parts of 
the country, offering to guide the confused people along 
the ways in which the Christians believe present and eternal 
welfare may be reached. 

(a). Roman Catholicism. — The work of the Church of 
Borne is again zealously carried forward. It no longer 
arouses the antagonism or fear excited by it three hundred 
years ago. Not only is it at the present time better under- 
stood by the Government, but it is seen to be only one 
among more than a score of missions bearing the Christian 
name, and differing from them in many ways in its aims 
and methods. Besides, the Imperial government is con- 
scious now of possessing self-preservative power. Eoman 
Catholicism does not occupy much of present public attention, 
nor does it show promise of any great share in the national 
future. Its following is drawn mainly from among the poorer 
and obscure classes. Its work is chiefly in medical and prim- 
ary charities and in education. In these beneficences it 
has accomplished an immense good. Its foreign represent- 
atives are nearly all from France, and they seem to be 
content to confine their labors to practical well-doing for 
the needy. Wisely, they do not attempt to take part in 
matters of public polity, nor is their influence felt in things 
which affect generally the development of Society. Almost 
half of the professed Christians of the Empire are members 
of the Church of Eome. 

(6). Orthodox Greek Catholicism.— A Russian bishop has 



1902 



ROMAN, AND GEEEK CATHOLICISM 



539 



residence in Japan and superintendends a mission of the 
Greek Catholic church. It is said that this mission has 
to-day (1902) about twenty-five thousand native adherents. 
This following is for the most part in the Northern provinces. 
As with the Eoman Catholic, so with the Greek Catholic 
Church : discipleship is for the largest part from among 
the lower classes. The Japanese, generally, think that 
both these churches demand from their members su- 
preme allegiance to two foreign potentates — Pope and 
Tsar. This opinion is almost an insurmountable obstacle 
to a very wide or reliable acceptance of the doctrines 
they teach. The common people are devoted to their 
own Emperor, and they instinctively resent whatever 
looks like betrayal or disloyalty. The general impression 
exists that Christianity in its Eoman and Greek forms is 
destructive of true patriotism in a Japanese. The repre- 
sentatives', of the Greek Church support various excellent 
philanthropic agencies. Seemingly, however, the sphere 
of this mission will always be confined within narrow 
limits. It will continue without much bearing upon the 
larger interests of the people. 

(c). Protestantism.— -There are more than a score of 
Protestant, or Evangelical Christian missions in Japan. 
More than six hundred representatives, men and women, 
from America and Europe are laboring for their success. 
About a million dollars annually is spent in carrying on the 
work of these missions. At the present time (1902) about 
forty thousand Japanese are joined in membership with 
the Evangelical churches. It is in the issue of the labors 
of the Protestant missions, if anywhere, that the future, 
among the Japanese, of Christianity believed in as a 
supernatural revelation of the one religion necessary for the 
welfare of the human race lies. 

The history of the vicissitudes attendant upon the career 
of Protestantism in the Far East is deeply interesting. It 
follows closely the variable, perplexing, and distracting 
moods through which the people have been passing during 
their new era. From the time that the anti-Christian 
edicts were removed (1873) until into the middle of the 
decade of the eighties, the course of Evangelical Christian- 



540 



THE JAPAN UNITABTAN MISSION PART III 



ity was constantly onward. It showed annually an 
increased popular acceptance. Among the middle, 
and somewhat in the upper, classes it found able and earn- 
est adherents. There were times, then, when prominent 
public men were even disposed to advocate the adoption of 
Christianity by the State. The country was possessed by 
a pro-foreign enthusiasm, It went so far as to alarm the 
leaders of the Government over the safety of the fundament- 
al principles of the State. In 1885, by Imperial rescript, 
the people were reminded of their distinctive faiths and 
duties. They were recalled to the preservation and observ- 
ance of their national virtues— loyalty and filial piety. 

Among the most marked effects of the nationalistic re- 
action following the issue of the rescript was a gradual 
withdrawal of the growing popular favor shown towards 
Christianity. About the year 1888, the culmination of the 
increasing advance of Christianity seems to have been 
reached. Since that time, although the progress of Evan- 
gelical Christianity has not ceased, the rate of movement 
has diminished to such a degree that in recent years many 
mission workers have been much discouraged. At the pres- 
ent day this retardation of evangelization has not been 
overcome. In some of the missions hardly any evidence 
of forward movement appears ; in others the progress is 
very slow ; in all, the rate of advance is less than it was 
thirteen years ago. This fact, let it be noted, is true of 
Christianity only as organized in denominations, or churches. 
Christianity as embodied in extra-Church philanthropies 
and humane agencies has not been affected by this re- 
action. More than ever, these helpful social agencies have 
been recently finding recognition and following. It is 
ecclesiastical Christianity in whose way the serious obsta- 
cles have appeared. 

But there are causes hindering Christian mission 
progress other than the revived nationalism of the 
last decade. Chief among these is the increasing ac- 
quaintance of the educated Japanese with Occidental 
rationalism, skepticism, and religious indifferentism. The 
exact sciences and the speculative philosophies of Europe 
and America have become familiar to the student and 



1902 EVANGELICAL PROTESTANTISM 541 



official classes. All the influences which militate against 
the progress of Evangelical Christianity in the West 
are as intelligibly present in Japan as in this country. 
They are even more accentuated there than here. 

Then, within organized Christianity itself, the denomi- 
national associations of the numerous missions have 
recently had not a little to do with checking the growth of 
the churches. In Japanese Christian literature during the 
past year there has been much reference to the divided 
Christianity as a serious obstacle to Christian progress 
among the people generally. Some of the missionaries ac- 
knowledge the difficulty. Some Japanese Christians have 
been attempting to signalize the opening of the Twentieth 
Century by making special efforts to minimize the evils of 
their inheritance of sectarian denominationalism. They 
have sought the utilization for Christian propagandism of 
the faiths and methods of the international " Evangelical 
Alliance." This endeavor is recorded here merely as a 
sign of the times ; it has not yet had much promise of suc- 
cess. At a recent missionary conference there was an 
effort made to get all the missions to combine in the found- 
ing of an unsectarian Christian university. The effort failed ; 
and some Japanese critics claim that this failure is but 
another indication of the general "harm done to Christianity 
by the perpetuation of Western sectarian distinctions in 
Eastern lands." Another native Christian, calling attention 
to the fact that certain Christian institutions of learning once 
vigorous and prominent are now " in a languishing state," 
has declared that " a great united movement is all that is 
required to save the situation, but this cannot be effected " 
because of " the powerlessness of the Protestants sects to 
co-operate to such end." Yet other reasons are given by 
the Japanese Christians to account for the retardation 
of the Christian advance. Some observers say that 
skepticism and indifference are spreading through their 
churches. One prominent writer has lately said : 

As regards the worship of God, Japanese Christians are lacking. 
The spirit of worship has grown less and lews, much to our sorrow. The 
chief reason of this is that many Christians do not attach any special 
value to worship for its own sake. 



542 THE JAPAN UNITAKIAN MISSION PAET III 



And still other reasons are given for the retardation that 
has befallen the progress of Christianity, but we need not 
repeat them. The main fact is clear and must be con- 
sidered. "Nevertheless, there never was a time probably 
when Christianity as one of the world's great religions ; as 
the religion of the mighty nations of the West ; as a 
theme for study in its relations to the needs of the empire, 
occupied so much of literature generally, or was so much a 
topic for public discussion, as to-day. The Christian 
religion, there is reason to judge, is not a lost, or even a 
losing cause in Japan, whatever may be its present slower 
movement. 

5. Substitutes for Beligion. — Attempts to find 
substitutes for Keligion constitute one of the most interest- 
ing of the factors in the present Japanese religious situa- 
tion. A large part of the educated classes is to be regard- 
ed as indifferent to religion in any form. At the same 
time, very few of the earnest leaders of thought and affairs 
are content to let the nation drift, or to continue without 
some cohering bond which is an equivalent of religion. In 
a lately published work on ethics the author assumes that 
religion is not either a fact or a need in the nation's life. 
He answers the question, " How is it that Japan manages 
to get on without a religion, or rather, what in Japanese 
education takes the place of religion ?" with the assertion 
that the " soul of Japan," Yamato damashii y supplies the 
need. From that source has come a code of ethics amply 
satisfying all individual and social want. Its elements are 
" loyalty to superiors and friends, chivalry, unselfishness, 
indifference to worldly gains of all kinds, ardent devotion 
to persons and causes, truthfulness in speech, and a keen 
sense of shame.'' Both question and answer represent a 
large measure of fact, for, speaking generally, it must be 
acknowledged that the Japanese have not ever been, in 
any high sense of the word, a religious people. They 
have never had what the peoples of the "West know as 
" soul-consciousness " — a sense of spiritual ideals and a 
personal apprehension of, and aspiration toward, the 
infinite and eternal Being we name " God." Shinto never 
taught them that. Both Buddhism and Confucianism 



1902 



PROPOSED SUBSTITUTES FOR RELIGION 



543 



ignore it. It is not surprising, therefore, that, under the 
skepticism toward the ancient faiths induced by the new 
knowledge, some of the leaders of thought should seek 
such substitutes for religion as the national ethics. But 
there are other prominent writers who, though themselves 
religious skeptics, are not satisfied with relegating the 
people to ethics for their future guidance. It is especially 
noticeable now that numbers of the most learned and 
respected thinkers declare that without religion in some 
satisfying form the national future is endangered. A pro- 
minent professor of philosophy in the chief Imperial 
university not long ago gave it as his judgment that " the 
present educational system of the Empire, empty as it is of 
all religion, is thereby seriously defective." He demands 
for the young the influence of religion, " intensely ethical 
and spiritual, free from all kinds of dogmatism and super- 
stitions." A well-known author last year published a 
book under the title The Ethics and 'Religions of the Bay. 
His chief plea is that " the ethics of the country, in order 
to be effective, must be based upon religion." Count 
Okuma, one of the greatest and most frankly speaking of 
the leaders of the country, has written in the Japanese 
Twentieth Century magazine that 

The old recognized moral guides of the nation. Buddhist and Shinto 
priests and Chinese scholars, have entirely lost their hold on society, 
and their successors have not yet appeared. Those in authority mnst 
take some steps to purify society, or the nation will sutler from the 
neglect a few decades hence. 

Then, there is this warning from another leader occupy- 
ing a high political and social level, a former minister of 
justice. He says : 

The moral code of the old samurai has been abandoned, and men 
have come to think that any conduct which is not illegal is allowable. 
The remedy for this evil lies in bringing education and religion, 
especially the latter, to bear on the thoughts and lives of the people. 

Yet another writer in a prominent journal has been 
pleading with the Government to open its eyes and to 
recognize the importance of religion as a factor in 
bringing about a social renovation. There is " no 
remedy for existing moral abuses but religion," he 
pleads. The Philosophical Magazine, in a recent issue, 



544 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PART III 



notes that " three leaders of thought are now advocating 
theories of reconstruction for religion." And Dr. Tomizu 
claims that there is no religion in Japan suitable to the 
real wants of the nation. "Confucianism," he says, "is 
defective in that it neglects to teach man his duties as a 
citizen. Buddhism is pessimistic. It failed in India, as it 
must fail here. Shinto does not possess the characteristics 
of a religion. Christianity is logically defective, and not to 
be relied upon." Apparently not a few of Japan's leaders 
are sensible of a great need for the people's higher life 
which only a satisfying religion can supply. 

Before leaving this part of our review we shall find 
much that will be instructive in glancing at the results of 
an attempt made not long ago, by sixteen representative 
teachers and guides of public opinion, to gain some exact 
knowledge of the religious condition of the students in the 
higher institutions of learning. More than forty-five 
hundred circulars of inquiry were sent to the students of 
the universities and the colleges. The results of the 
venture were unsatisfactory in many ways, yet some 
significant inferences may be drawn fiom them. The 
questions asked were these : 

(1) Do you believe in religion? Are you at liberty to believe in it 
if you wish ? (2) Have you any desire for religion? (3) Have you at 
any time believed in religion? If so, and you have relinquished that 
belief, state your reasons for this course. (4) If you believe in no 
religion, what do you depend on for regulating your daily conduct ? 
Do you dislike religion? If so, why? (5) If you do not believe in 
religion yourself, do you recognize its necessity for others? If so, on 
what ground ? 

The replies returned to these questions were from only 
about one-fifth of the young men addressed. This fact 
indicates either that the committee had but little influence 
over the young men, or that the subject of the questions is 
of but little interest to them. Nevertheless, the answers 
that were received— nearly a thousand in all — may be 
taken in general as signs of existing facts. No answers 
came from the Nobles' School. As the students in this 
school are more or less closely connected with the govern- 
ment and the Imperial House, the silence is natural. We 
learn that not quite half of the young men who sent 



1902 RELIGION IN THE STUDENT CLASS 



545 



answers had been subject to any home religious influence. 
Only fifteen per cent, of the answerers had been affected by 
religion at school. These had been students at mission 
schools. About one-third of all those who replied had 
been drawn to religion through the reading of the bio- 
graphies of great men in whom religion had been an active 
force. The Japanese are notably hero- worshipers. Among 
those who declared themselves non-religionists about three 
hundred had been made antagonistic toward religion 
through home and college influences. Many objected to 
religion on account of its superstitions. Some had been 
led into opposition to Christianity because they had been 
taught that Christianity is antagonistic to State interests. 
Some others had been affected by scientific teachings and 
by immorality in the lives of religious professors. In all, 
of the nine hundred and fifty-two students who answered 
the questions, five hundred and fifty-five confessed that 
they do not believe in religion. Among the religious be- 
lievers two hundred and thiity-one are Buddhists, eighteen 
are Shintoists, twenty-four are Confucianists. There are 
sixty-eight Christians, but most of these claimed to be free- 
thinkers, or rationalistic Christians. Among the non- 
religionists one hundred and thirty-four declared that they 
have no desire for religion. Two hundred and thirty-seven 
expressed desire for possession of religious belief, but find 
intellectual difficulties in their way. In reference to ethics 
the interesting fact appears that by far the larger number 
of the students incline to subjective standards ; that is, to 
the control of conduct by one's own conscience. Com- 
paratively few of them are ready to accept for their 
guidance objective ethics, such as written codes or the 
creeds of the religions. Among those accepting objective 
ethics, most of them placed Confucianism first, then Bud- 
dhism, and last Christianity. The Philosophical Magazine, 
from whose detailed report this summary is drawn, 
observes 

that the facts stated are very significant and show that some efforts 
are required to present religion to students in a more acceptable form 
than it has hitherto assumed. 

It is claimed by the promoters of the investigation that 



546 



THE JAPAN UNITAKIAN MISSION PAET III 



the answers elicited represent prevailing opinion among the students 
throughout the country. 

Interpretative of the facts here given is the assertion of 
a contemporary Christian periodical that 

It must not be forgotten that a very large number of young men 
have come under the influence of foreign skeptical philosophers like 
Mill and Spencer, or they have imbibed the religious notions of 
Schopenhauer and von Hartmann, or are tinctured with the pessimism 
of Nietzche and his school. The new German Kantists have followers 
in this country. The one characteristic of all these schools of thought 
is a skeptical attitude toward what usually goes by the name of 
religion. 

We may now bring our attempt to answer the inquiry 
heading this article to a close. So far, what is said does 
not offer much that is especially encouraging to those who 
are solicitous for the religious progress of the people of 
Japan. But we need not leave our theme without turn- 
ing attention to certain other facts which are really signs 
of promise, of changes for the better, in the situation. One 
of the most widely read and discerning of the Japanese 
periodicals, Taiyo, declared in its New Year " issue of 
1901 that, though it has 

no faith in the future of Buddhism, and that stagnation marks the 
movement of Christianity, there is likely to be a revival of faith. 
Materialism reached its height in the nineteenth century, and there is 
bound to be a reaction against it and in favor of religion ; not the 
religion of creeds resting upon mere authority, but upon faith whose 
support lies in the reason. 

Apparently the Japanese must first live through, and 
considerably beyond, their present distracting attempts at 
political, social, and religious readjustments. They are 
irrevocably committed to acceptance of the dominating 
forces of the civilization of the West. They are rapidly 
becoming co-workers with all other peoples in the world's 
general development. They have a specific national 
genius ; but this wall increasingly act with and be acted 
upon by the " world spirit." Their destiny is hence- 
forward one with our own. The present condition of the 
people is naturally one of great complexity, confusion, and 
uncertainty. The breaking up of their ancient civil and 
social order ; the continuous inflow in the past four dec- 



1902 



WORTH OF CHRISTIAN MISSION WORK 



547 



ades of the thought and life of the vast alien humanity of 
the world ; the effects of their persisting racial instincts 
and habits — all these forces, interacting under an intense 
impulse toward self-preservation, could not for the time 
being have a different result. But there is well-grounded 
hope that in the future, not very far distant, order will 
appear in the chaos "and means of safety against present 
dangers be found. Particularly in reference to Christian- 
ity it is to be said that, although the missions have not 
won a large following for their faiths, as organized in the 
various sects, the Christian philanthropic agencies, such as 
are devoted to the reformation of criminals, the care of the 
sick, the idiotic, the insane, and the poor ; to the promotion 
of public hygiene and sanitation, and to the alleviation of 
the evils of war, are fully as high in the favor of Society 
and of the State as are the mechanical, commercial, and 
educational appliances of European civilization. Also it is 
to be said of the Christian missionaries that their general 
excellence in mental culture, and, more than that, their 
personal good character, the purity of their home life, and 
.their consecration to the cause they uphold, have done 
much in stimulating the leaders representative of the 
native and inherited forms of religion to show like excel- 
lences, and have prepared the way among the people for a 
larger welcome to the doctrines they preach and the life of 
which they teach. 

The history of modern Christian mission work 
in Japan is worthy of high praise. The work has 
been faithfully done, and it has made a permanent 
impress for good upon the nation. Xow that the 
old hostility of the State has entirely disappeared, and all 
Japanese are legally free to accept Christian discipleship, 
the future of the missions depends solely on the ability of 
the missionaries to persuade their hearers of the truth of 
their gospel. The immediate and most urgent task seems 
to be the awakening of the " soul of Japan " to a true re- 
ligious consciousness. A letter from the leader of one of 
the chief Evangelical missions, received by the present 
writer, indorses and emphasizes this judgment. "A theistic 
consciousness," according to this letter, is the most im- 



548 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PAET III 



perative, and the fundamental need ; a knowledge of the 
divine ideals which have for ages shone before the larger 
humanity — the God-idea and a sense of personal dignity as 
an immortal soul. Let these ideals enter and transfigure 
the 4 ' soul of Japan." and the greatest possible initiatory 
service of the Christian missions would be done. Herein lies 
hope, and in this w r ay, probably, the true progress will be 
found. Many missionaries are seeing in this gain the way 
of deliverance. An intelligent theism would open the 
way to the doctrine of the " Fatherhood of God " and the 
a Brotherhood of Man," and thereby into the paths lead- 
ing to the many sanctuaries of the religion of Jesus Christ. 

There is hope that the effort now chosen by some of the 
more prominent Christian missions to win the nation to a 
true theism will begin the permanent solution of the 
problem of religion for the far East. 

The greater conflict of Buddhism with Christianity is 
yet to come. Evidently Buddhism shows rapid renewal 
of strength. The appeal of the " Great Buddhist Union 
made a year ago to the Christians of the world concerning 
the methods of the propagandism of Christianity in China, 
and the later charge made by the abbot of Japan's 
greatest temple that Christians " do not understand his 
faith," indicate that the conflict will in the end center 
about the fundamental principles from which the two 
forms of religion draw vitality. If, then, Christianity, 
voicing man's faith in the eternal Fatherhood of God, 
showing forth the universal Brotherhood of Mankind, and 
supporting hope in eternal life for each human soul, is 
placed over against Buddhism, telling of man's despair 
before " the evil of conscious existence," searching for an 
" enlightenment " by which eternal unconsciousness for 
each human mind is gained, it is hardly to be doubted, 
though the followers of both the Christ and the Buddha 
show their faiths daily in justice, mercy, love, and piety, 
that the cause of the Christian will triumph. Christian 
faith, sustained by man's enlarging knowledge, we may 
be confident, will ultimately bear the victory in "the 
Mikado's land." 



Clay MacCauley Memorial Toro, Tokyo, 1905 
See " Illustrations " ante. 



1903-08 LECTURES IN AMERICA ON JAPAN 549 



V. 

Special Lectures on Japan : 
America, 1900-]905 

Although my absence from Japan extended through 
several years I remained in continuous connection with 
friends I had made there. Also, to the extent of my 
ability and opportunity, I sought to be a kind of " go-be- 
tween " between the peoples of Japan and of the United 
States during Japan's critical international relations then. 
I was on the lecture platform often ; and the themes I had 
for my lectures were almost wholly related to Japan and 
its interests. I had prepared a special series of lectures, 
from which I chose those which best met the wishes of 
my auditors. These were — 

1. Scenic Japan : " The Land of the Japanese' 1 

2. Mythologic Japan : " The Way of the Gods" 

3. Buddhistic Japan : " The Path of the Soul to 

Emancipation." 

4. Feudal Japan : u The Way of the Samurai.'" 

5. Modern Japan: (i The Dawning of a New En- 

lightrnent." 

6. Japanese Literature. 

I lectured much, also, during Japan's war with Eussia on 
" Japan : the Standard Bearer of Civilization in the Far 
East." 

In the autumn of 1905 I made a return visit to Japan, 
spending the winter with friends there ; renewing some- 
what my association with the Mission's work. 



550 THE JAPAN UNITAEIAN MISSION PAET III 



VI. 

Present Status of the Japan Mission 

In 1909, the American Unitarian Association resumed 
direct relationship with its Japan Mission ; and I was 
commissioned by the Bev. Samuel A. Eliot, D.D., president 
of the Association, to become again " the friendly counsellor 
and helper of our Japanese friends." In a report which I 
made for the information of home supporters of the Mis- 
sion, not long after I had again become resident in Tokyo, 
I wrote : — 

i. 

The special purpose of this resumed activity is a closer 
co-operation with the Japanese Unitarians who are seek- 
ing to carry farther forward their plans for a more definite 
and extended organic service to their country. At present, 
consequently, the Japan Unitarian Mission is hopefully at 
work with a reorganized local church in Tokyo ; with 
various specific denominational agencies establishing else- 
where in the country ; and it is also seeking beyond 
denominational limits to aid rational liberalism wherever 
our help may be desired among the organizations bearing 
either Buddhist, Christian or other religious names. In 
these efforts, so we believe, the large purpose of our 
Mission is on the best way to its fulfilment. 

The eighth annual issue of " The Christian Movement 
in Japan " published in 1910, contains the following 
pertinent items which have a fitting place in this record : — 

" The Tokyo Unitarian Church " has formulated and 
adopted a constitution whose preamble embodies a " De- 
claration of Principles ' ' by which its faith and work are 
henceforth to be regulated. In substance these principles 
are : — 

" 1. Belief in the religious nature of man, and the con- 
viction that this nature can be developed and fulfilled 
under the guidance of the reason and the spirit divinely 
innate in man. 

2. Belief, in accordance with the teaching of Jesus 



1909 



RECENT WOBK OF THE MISSION 



551 



Christ, that through faith in the Fatherhood of God and 
the Brotherhood of Man we gain the best means with 
which to promote the happiness of mankind and the peace 
of the world. 

3. Desire to meet the followers of other religions in the 
spirit of fellowship, believing that in these religions, also, 
truth is given. 

This church is a local organization, but its members are 
seeking to develop it as a type among liberal Christian 
churches, and so to enable it to be a pioneer among many 
like it, yet to come. It sustains regular Sunday services 
for worship, praise and instruction in spiritual things ; it is 
building up a Sunday school for both adults and children ; 
and it has made plans for an increasing self-support and 
for considerable charitable work, and for the literary and 
social culture of its members and associates." 

There are, throughout the Empire, many thousands of 
persons who have professed sympathy with the Unitarians, 
of whom the names of about eight hundred were not long 
ago enrolled on the books of the Tokyo Society. 

The next proposed step is the organization of a 
Japan Unitarian Association that shall be national in 
character. Several persons who are prominent in various 
educational, literary and business relationships have agreed 
to take part in the formation of such an organization. 

Our magazine, the Bikugo ZassJii (Cosmos), the oldest 
Christian magazine in Japan, and always one of the most 
honored and most quoted of Japanese religious periodicals, 
is edited and published at Unity Hail. Our Pest Office 
Mission and the general Publication Department for Uni- 
tarian, or Liberal Christian literature, are in immediate 
connection with the American Mission, in charge of com- 
petent officers and workers. Unity Hall is not only the 
headquarters of the varied interests of both the Tokyo 
Church and the American Unitarian Association Mission, 
but it is becoming also a place where various related 
charitable, social service and educational societies of this 
part of Tokyo have opportunity for holding special sessions. 
The New Buddhists, who are Buddhist Theists, and who 
are in many ways sympathetically related with Unitarian- 



552 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PAET III 



ism, use our Hall once each month for their well-attended 
meetings, and other associations, intended for social help- 
fulness, receive from time to time, our hospitality. 

As to the outlook for the Unitarian work in Japan there 
is little need that much should be attempted in this record. 
There is nothing in our way that is not also in the way of 
every kind of religious effort in Japan. Indeed, there is 
less to oppose us than is found confronting any other form 
of Christianity. It may be justly claimed that if Liberal 
Christianity is not to find a successful acceptance among the 
people, then the whole Christian movement will in time 
come to naught. Christianity in Japan will inevitably be 
a liberal, rational, natural Christianity if the Japanese 
people are ever to become Christian at all. 

The gospel for which Jesus lived and died ; the inspira- 
tion and consecration that came from his faith in God and 
service to man ; the simple, natural, practical Christianity 
" summed up in love to God and love to Man," which is 
the ideal and aim professed for our Japan Mission, is sure 
to become the distinctive mark of Japanese Christianity if 
ever that name is to abide. And I am confident that the 
name will abide. In fact, I believe that " the crucial ex- 
periment " which the honored president of our National 
Conference finds in our Unitarian Mission is really a fore- 
runner and prototype of the rationalized Christianity that 
as time goes on will become more and more self-reliant as 
" Japanese Christianity/ ' and be the source of immeasur- 
able spiritual power and blessedness to this people. 

ii. 

Three years later, (1913), "The Christian Movement in 
Japan " contained this information concerning the Mis- 
sion's growth and work. 

The Unitarian Mission, known now to the Japanese 
under the name To-itsu Kirisuto-Kyo Kodokwai, has just 
closed the most prosperous and useful year in its history. 
Its activities have been directed under four chief depart- 
ments — 



1913 THE MISSION'S RECENT GB0WTH 553 



1. Church Extension 

2. Education 

3. Social Service 

4. Publication. 

Under " Church Extension," the Mission has been in co- 
operation with the Tokyo Unitarian Church in Mita, 
Shiba, where regular meetings for worship every Sunday 
and thirty-three special meetings, altogether having an 
attendance of nearly 13,000 persons, have been held. The 
church membership in March 1912 was sixty-two ; it is 
now one hundred and sixty-two. In the Sunday School 
are one hundred and fifty children with eight teachers ; 
the children being mostly from the families of working 
people and small shopkeepers in the neighbourhood of 
Unity Hall. A Bible class of nearly twenty young men, 
conducted by the Eev. Kato, is held every Sunday morning 
before the church services. A Unity Club of thirty mem- 
bers, young men and women, has regular monthly and 
special meetings for social and literary purposes. Devo- 
tional meetings for the church members and friends take 
place every Thursday evening under the guidance of the 
minister of the Church, Eev. S. Uchigasaki. 

In the department of " Education," classes numbering 
twenty-eight young men, under the direction of Professors 
Minami and Okada have met on Tuesdays and Fridays 
since October last, until March, especially for the study of 
the works of Eucken and Bergson.. The young men have 
had the pleasure of hearing directly by letter from these 
leaders of modern religious and philosophic thought. There 
was also a Summer School in July last, attended by 
students in classes averaging fifty each for the six days of 
the sessions. Eleven lecturers, specialists in ethics, phil- 
osophy, and religion, and prominent in various religious 
and educational institutions, volunteered their services for 
the week, and took for their themes some of the specifical- 
ly timely topics of their departments. A similar course of 
lectures is proposed for the coming summer. 

Throughout the year the department of "Social Service" 
has been active in various important directions. It has 
supported, since October last, a " Bureau of Legal Advice " 



554 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PART III 



giving free legal counsel to persons needing it and who are 
unable to employ attorneys. Thirty-seven complex legal 
entanglements have been satisfactorily solved by this agency. 
Popular lecture meetings have been held semi-monthly, 
having audiences numbering upwards of four hundred, com- 
posed chiefly of the working people of the Shiba district. 

Out of these meetings the " Friendly Society," a con- 
stitutional organization, consisting of five hundred and thirty 
members, (at this writing 3000), has developed, under the pre- 
sidency of Mr. B. Suzuki, the secretary of the Japan Unit- 
arian Association. The Association has for its object mutual 
helpfulness and the promotion of knowledge, character, and 
the art of life as citizens. The Society publishes monthly 
the Yu-ai Shimpo, 1200 copies, (now 2700), to advance its 
purposes. The lecturers before the Society have been well 
known men of Japan, in literature, law, politics, medicine 
and the various sciences. 

The " Publication Department" has been occupied chiefly 
with the care of the Bikugo Zasshi, the oldest and now 
one of the most important and most widely circulated of 
the Christian magazines of the Empire. The issue of the 
magazine has increased from 1000 copies a year ago to 
1800, and is widely circulated, not only in Japan, but in 
Hawaii, China and among Japanese in America and 
in Europe. 

In addition to these mere notes, we can report the 
beginning of negotiations for a location in North Tokyo 
on which to erect a new Unitarian Hall, to which the 
general activities of the Japan Unitarian Association will 
be transferred, leaving the present Unity Hall free for 
specific social settlement and educational w T ork in the 
thickly settled manufacturing districts of the southern part 
of the city. 

in. 

The latest published information (official) about the 
Mission is to be found in " The Christian Movement in 
Japan," appearing as these pages go to the printer. The 
notes here following, properly find place in these " Re- 
cords." 



19U 



THE MISSION'S PRESENT WORK 



555 



" The work of the To-itsu Kirisuto-Jcyo Kodokwai has 
been carried on during the past year without change in its 
form of organization, but with a notably large increase," 
especially in its departments of " Social Service " and of 
" Publication." 

" The Church membership is now two hundred and 
eight, an increase of forty-six." The Sunday School, the 
Sunday Club, and the Devotional Meetings under Mr. 
Uchigasaki's devoted care all show encouraging increase 
in size and interest. 

Twenty-one " special meetings," six of them for " the 
specific propagation of Liberal Christianity " and three 
having " particular reference to interests of women " all 
largely attended, have been held. Also ten mass meetings, 
concerned with such objects of general popular interest as 
1 Constitutional Administration,' ' Social Purity,' * Interde- 
nominational Fellowship/ have attracted wide attention." 

University Extension lectures under Prof. Minami's care 
on Bergson's " Creative Evolution," and the " Gospel from 
the View-point of Comparative Eeligion " have been given 
semi-weekly. 

Eleven popular lecture meetings largely attended have 
been held and the " Bureau of Free Legal Advice" has 
dealt with seventy-seven cases. 

" Six labor strikes were prevented or settled during the 
winter ; fifty law cases decided, and more than a hundred 
sick men cared for by the Friendly Society." 

In the " Study of Conditions Among Industrial Men of 
Tokyo," by Rev. J. Merle Davis, of the Tokyo "Young 
Men's Christian x\ssociation," and embodied in " The 
Christian Movement," 1914, is this note about the 
"Friendly Society" which I transfer to these records, 
correcting only the membership statement from " five 
thousand " to thirty-five hundred. 

"First among secular organizations for moral and social 
uplift of Tokyo's industrial classes, may be mentioned 
1 The Laborer's Friendly Society,' which under the able 
leadership of Mr. B. Suzuki, a graduate of the Law De- 



556 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PART III 



partment of the Imperial University, is affiliated in a ge- 
neral way with the Japan Unitarian Association. 

In its aims and organization the Friendly Society re- 
minds one of the early Trade Unions of the West. Its 
purpose is to befriend the working man ; to stand for his 
rights in society and before the law ; to create a public 
sentiment in his favor; to elevate his life hygienically, 
intellectually and morally, and to make him a more useful 
member of society. 

The Society has branches in three wards of Tokyo, and 
in Muroran, Oyama, Shidzuoka and other cities, enrolling 
a membership of over thirty-five hundred. These mem- 
bers pay a monthly fee of twenty sen, which includes all 
members of the family in its privileges and entitles the 
individual to the Society's bi-weekly paper, to the monthly 
lecture in Unity Hall, which is also the headquarters of 
the organization ; and to the privileges accruing from its 
various departments. 

This department plan is an elaborate one, covering 
nearly every phase of the workman's life, except religion. 
The Legal Advice Department gives free legal consultation 
and assistance to the members ; the attention of a skilled 
physician, together with pamphlets on hygiene and health, 
is provided by the Department of Medicine and Hygiene ; 
while Departments of Savings, Insurance, Employment, 
Entertainment, Lectures, Publications, Domestic Economy 
and Education, including a Night School, reveal the very 
wide scope of the welfare work attempted. That this 
friendly Society is meeting a tremendous need among the 
working class, is shown by the fact that although only one 
year and a half old, within the last six months its member- 
ship has increased from 2,200 to over 3,500, and is still 
growing by leaps and bounds/' 

These excerpts from recent reports probably give enough 
information about the Unitarian Mission in Japan to meet 
the needs of the specific purpose of these " Memories." 
But I may note, as we pass on, the wide-reaching in- 
fluence in favor of our Mission's aims following the recent 



1890 



KOJUNSHA ADDRESS 



557 



visits of Dr. Charles W. Eliot, Professor Francis G. Pea- 
body, D.D., Eev. J. T. Sunderland, D.D., and Eev. 
Bradley Gilman. 

Also, I add this just published comment by the secretary 
of the "Department of Foreign Relations" of the " American 
Unitarian Association," Rev. Charles W. Wendte, D.D., — 

"Established some twenty-five years ago at the urgent 
invitation of eminent native thinkers and scholars of that 
country who felt that our form of Christianity was best 
suited to the spiritual and moral needs of their reconstitut- 
ed civilization, the Unitarian Mission in Tokyo has had 
an interesting history. Never did it fulfil a more useful 
function to modern Japanese religion and life than at the 
present day." 

VII. 

Not directly connected w 7 ith the service to the Japanese 
to which the Unitarians were invited, but as a venture which 
in an important sense may be considered a genuine service, 
notwithstanding, is an address which I delivered in Tokyo, 
April 27th, 1890, at the " Twelfth Annual Meeting " of 
the Society of scholars and business men, named the Ko- 
junsha. It was afterwards translated into the Japan- 
ese language ; and it has been widely circulated. Its value 
to-day, so far as it is an interpretation of Japan's new era 
and is a warning concerning the dangers which threaten 
the people, is apparently not less than when it was first 
spoken, now twenty-five years ago. 

Japan's Present Dangers and Need. 

Japan's present era is evidently to be the most eventful 
and important period in the .history of the Empire. It is 
an era of transformations which affect the very sources of 
the national life. 

Just now, especially noticeable are the effects of the 



558 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PART III 



gracious act with which his Majesty the Emperor has 
marked his return to an unembarrased sovereignty. He 
has made a free gift to the nation of a Constitution. He 
has invited a large part of the people to share with him 
the direction of national affairs. ' Constitutional law is 
hereafter to be the controlling force of the Empire. A 
Parliament representing the popular will is to give shape 
to that law. In fact, Japan has been entrusted by its 
Sovereign with the beginnings of popular government, 
which in time will doubtless become more direct and 
complete. 

In the next place, the present era is distinguished by 
the transition of the Empire from a state of seclusion to one 
of international intercourse. It has been found to be un- 
desirable to keep the people out of the great movement of 
modern times, by which all the people of the world are 
being drawn into vital intercommunication. All around 
the earth, mankind are beginning a general interchange of 
of natural and industrial products, and entering upon 
an age of social reciprocity. Scarcely a generation 
has passed since Japan was but little more than a name 
beyond its own borders, and since the other peoples of the 
world were but like a dream to Japan. Now, Japan is 
everywhere known and well known. In your ports where, 
less than a half century ago, a foreign flag was never seen, 
now, ships from the farthest shores come and go daily, laden 
with cargoes for Japan, and w T ith wealth from your fielcfs 
and factories for other countries. The most distant markets 
hold your food products, your fabrics and objects of art ; 
while everywhere in your ow T n markets, machinery, food, 
fabrics, and other products of foreign labor and invention 
may be seen. 

Bat the transformation following the newly opened 
international intercourse is not only commercial. Your 
social life is changing too. A social interchange of 
momentous import is going on. The Japanese student 
and tourist is a familiar figure in Europe and America, 
while here, visitors and scholars from the opposite side of 
the globe are in daily contact with you in business, in 
schools, in your homes and in your government offices. 



1900 



CHANGES IN MODEKN JAPAN 



559 



Your manners and customs, your architecture, your litera- 
ture, your art all show marks of change ; in some direc- 
tions they have been almost revolutionized. Evidently 
Japan has lowered the barriers which so long separated it 
from the rest of mankind and is becoming a member of 
the household of nations. 

A third of this notable series of transformations is the 
result of Japan's recent transition from a nonscientific 
mood to that of science. This change is vitally involved in 
the social transformation just mentioned, but it is of suf- 
ficient importance to receive separate attention. Europe 
and America have been almost created anew during the 
past few centuries by having been aroused to a scientific 
investigation of nature and of life. During Che centuries 
of Japan's isolation, the peoples of the West completed 
their struggle out of the ignorance and superstition of the 
Middle Ages. When Japan re-entered intercourse with 
the West it found Europe and America enjoying marvel- 
lous results from their free science. Mechanical invention 
had made distance of no moment ; it had immeasurably 
increased human power ; it had added enormously to 
wealth, happiness, and national dignity. The new spirit 
of rational inquiry had done away with mere tradition and 
dogma in the knowledge of nature ; in the treatment of dis- 
ease ; in the methods of education ; in the whole round of 
merely inherited thought and ways of life. The new spirit 
had started human society forward in all its relations, 
personal and social, and religious and political as well. Its 
motive force was new knowledge and farther progress con- 
stantly. Lord Macaulay well characterized the Baconian 
philosophy, which is typical of the modern scientific mood 
generally, when he wrote, — " It is a philosophy which 
never rests, w T hich has never attained it, which is never 
perfect. Its law is progress. A point which yesterday 
was invisible is its goal to-day and will be its starting 
point to-morrow." 

Japan in re-entering international communication came 
suddenly into contact with the full energy and effects of 
this modern spirit. The nation was subjected to it ; and in 
a generation has been speeding over the space which it had 



560 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PART III 



taken the West five hundred years to traverse. To-day 
Japan is making an unparalleled swift transition from its 
own past under the sway of the spirit of science and 
reason. Steamships, railways, electric telegraphs and tele- 
phones, power presses, scores of other kinds of labor 
saving machines, and innumerable quantities of the pro- 
ducts of free invention are here ; an army and navy with 
the modern appliances of scientific engineering, equipment, 
discipline, and strategy, are here ; modern astronomy, me- 
teorology, chemistry, medicine, geology, botany, and the 
whole host of natural sciences are here ; scientific education 
extending from the kindergarten to the University is here ; 
the philosophy of science, its rationalism, its utilitarianism, 
its many forms of naturalistic speculation are here, too. 

Moreover, the force of Japan's religious traditions has 
either grown very weak, or has wholly ceased over in- 
creasing numbers. The same intellectual restlessness 
which characterizes the Western peoples, the same eager 
desire to make constant progress from the gains of to-day 
to the possible gains of to-morrow are active here. The 
scientific mood is upon Japan as upon America and Eu- 
rope ; and under its power the traditional past is disappear- 
ing, while the people are impelled to enter the future as 
discoverers setting out over a land unknown, to find a new 
home and fortunes. 

No earnest and intelligent citizen of this Empire, or friend 
of the Japanese people can look upon these facts without 
solicitude. What will the forces, thus so suddenly and 
powerfully set in operation, bring forth ? I cannot doubt, 
knowing what I do of the course of human history, that 
popular government, that widening international inter- 
course, will, in the long run, produce the highest prosperity 
and happiness. I cannot doubt that, in order to reach 
these ends, the most efficient means is found in a true 
knowledge and use of nature and its forces, and in a prac- 
tical science of man. The greatest attainments mankind 
have made, have been made in these modern times of free, 
rational thought and natural, utilitarian science. These 
conclusions I cannot doubt. 

But at the same time I cannot doubt too, that these 



3 



1900 DANGER ACCOMPANYING THE CHANGES 561 

grand factors in human progress are accompanied by very 
grave responsibilities and by the most serious dangers ; by 
dangers which, if they are not guarded against, can bring 
to ruin the fairest structures that free thought and science 
may rear. And I am persuaded that if there ever was a 
people, whose character and circumstances made caution, 
prudence, comprehensive and conservative intelligence 
necessary in using these tremendous forces of progress, it 
is the people of Japan. I have long been convinced that 
this judgment is well founded. So, when the invitation 
came to me to speak at your annual meeting, my im- 
mediate impulse was to emphasize this judgment here and 
to add some thoughts concerning the special dangers and 
duties which the advance of your present era brings into 
view. It may appear obtrusive for one who is a compara- 
tive stranger to speak in this way. This is a topic which 
may be thought to be peculiarly your own. But I believe 
you will indulge me by reason of the strong personal in- 
terest I have in Japan ; also on account of your intimate 
relation now to our common humanity in whose welfare 
we are all involved. Moreover, the culminating thought 
of my address has a universal as well as a local bearing. 

I assume that human nature is in all men essentially 
the same ; that, with the same impulses and conditions, 
all men will practically think and act alike. I assume, too, 
that cause and effect are uniformly connected in mental as 
well as in physical relations. The light of what has happened 
in human society may be taken as a safe guidance to what 
will happen where the same forces are at work. The Egypt- 
ians, the Chaldeans, the Greeks, the Jews, the Romans 
the French, the Germans, the English, the Puritans, all 
formed, or are forming, great States. Some of these peoples 
are now but names in history. They were human beings. 
Their privileges, their dangers, their duties, were much 
alike. Their fortunes, their fates are only clear signs of 
the rise or fall, the grandeur or ruin of all who follow in 
their paths and do their deeds. So then with the light of 
man's experience to show us our way, let us go farther on. 

What of Japan's present political transformation ? Had 
I time I would show in relation to this question how every 



562 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PAKT III 



form of Government carries with it its special privileges, 
dangers, and duties. But we must reach our goal more 
quickly. 

Let us suppose, then, that we have to deal with a 
State which has erected for itself an Absolute Monarchy. 
The monarch, we assume, rules his realm with a true 
reverence for the sanction, or the faith, by which absolute 
power has been placed in his hands. Undoubtedly under 
such government Society may reach a high degree of peace 
and prosperity. But, the histories of the monarchies of 
the world show that, wherever order and happiness have 
been maintained and advanced under them, the people 
have always been controlled by an unquestioning loyalty 
to their ordained ruler. The prosperity of the monarchy 
requires thorough obedience, showing itself in the devotion 
of the subject's time and person, if need be, to the Sovereign. 
The one uncompromising and comprehensive duty of the 
monarch's subject must he loyalty. Self-assertion or 
personal independence should be the last thing be should 
attempt if the State is to be preserved. He should find 
his well being in his ruler's will. He should freely yield 
of his w 7 ealth for his Sovereign's needs. He should be 
ready to give even his life for his lord. 

But let it come to pass that the monarchy be changed 
in any way so that civil power is distributed to the People. 
Then, radically different factors enter the working of the 
Government. The moment a monarchy expresses itself in 
a Constitution and accepts a Legislature composed of citizens 
representative of and chosen by popular suffrage ; by these 
facts the individual citizen takes on a different character 
from that of the passive subject. The citizen himself 
becomes a law-maker and an executive of the law. The 
stability and progress of the State now depend not only 
upon each citizen's loyalty to the supreme authority which 
he himself helps to establish, but also upon his wise 
intelligence, upon his moderation, tolerance and self con- 
straining patriotism. John Stuart Mill, the distinguished 
English economist, speaking of popular government said : 
" The worth of a State is, in the long run, the worth of 
the individuals composing it." No truer sentence was 



1900 



CONCERNING POLITICAL CHANGES 



563 



ever uttered. In a Popular Government the individual 
citizen becomes continually more and more important ; the 
final law of the State is in the end the result of the ex- 
pressions of individual wills. This result, however, of 
necessity is brought about by w r ise, generous concessions, 
compromises and faithfully kept agreements among in- 
dividual citizens. 

Through this mutual give and take, agencies which 
are essential to the conduct of any Popular Government, 
parties, are created. But, as only one party can direct a 
State at one time, it is evident that in the contest for 
supremacy which must take place among political parties 
there can be no safety for the State unless all citizens agree 
that majorities shall rule. In a self-regulating govern- 
ment, majority-law under the Constitution must be 
supreme. If such a government is to exist at all, no 
citizen or party should ever dare to resist by violence or to 
destroy this fundamental principle. You see, therefore, 
how much that is new and of the most important 
character is laid upon the individual citizen where a 
government passes from a Monarchy into the care of the 
People. 

Now, Japan as we all know, is undergoing a transition 
from an Imperial Feudalism to a Representative Constitu- 
tionalism under its Emperor. A new type of citizenship 
is therefore imperative, if the Emperor's gracious act is to 
meet with the success it is intended it should have. The 
intelligent, self-respecting, prudent, conservative, law- 
abiding and tolerant citizen is demanded for the service 
of the new order of affairs in the State. Popular 
elections are soon to occur ; lines are to be drawn 
through the present political chaos, shaping closely de- 
fined party organizations ; parliamentary debate and 
popular legislation will before long be daily occur- 
rences. Japanese Society, which has been comparative- 
ly stable, is now to become mobile under the will of 
the people. It is not only to be largely reorganized, but is 
to undergo repeated reorganizations. The political, com- 
mercial, and social stations of citizens are to be liable to 
unexpected changes. Critical experiments are to be tried, 



564 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PART III 



with great and novel problems in finance, commerce, 
industry, education, art, and social affairs generally. Now, 
clearly, the future peace and prosperity of the Nation is to 
depend upon the intelligence, wisdom, caution and loyal 
forbearance with one another, dominant among the 
people. May the citizens of Japan realize fully w 7 hat 
the new order of their State means, and become 
worthy of the high privileges now made possible to 
them ! 

But with the political change the transition of the 
nation from its past isolation to a world-wide intercourse 
is also hastening forward. A whole cycle of new com- 
mercial and social relations is being entered. With this, 
many new perils and duties are appearing. Under the 
former order of things Japan's trade and industry were 
practically confined within its own borders. Its social 
habits, and customs ; its literature and art were almost wholly 
adapted to its own and to no other's needs. Its commerce 
was not only very limited, but it was comparatively free 
from the fever of competition. Invention was extremely 
slow ; industries being fifty years ago very like what they 
were a thousand years ago. There was none of the 
restless struggle for wealth and place characteristic of 
to-day. From century to century a placid, equable in- 
dustry and commerce were carried on. Science was 
small and unprogressive. Literature ranged within very 
narrow limits. The nation's unique art moved along a 
path of high, but of little varying excellence. Now, how- 
ever, the mighty, complex, and never settled commercial, 
industrial, scientific, literary, and art movements of the 
outside world have come upon this land as an invading 
host. The former circumscribed and simple organization 
of Japanese Society has been brought into contact with these 
revolutionary forces. The unmeasured ambition of Western 
commerce, the West's enormous industrial operations, its 
competitions, its ideals of massive wealth, its stupendous 
financial schemings, and the like, have all come here, 
arousing this people from the old, uneventful quiet. These 
new forces, I believe, can here, as elsewhere, open ways to 
great prosperity. Your natural resources, your geographical 



1900 CONCERNING COMMERCIAL DANGERS 565 

position, your pioneer work in this part of the world justify 
the belief. 

. But how many perils beset Japan with the new op- 
portunities ! Wholesome ambition may easily become an 
unscrupulous greed under the novel excitement. Honesty 
may easily be supplanted by cunning and fraud. Trust 
and honor, the very foundations of permanent com- 
mercial prosperity, are laid bare to undermining forces that 
can bring down the whole fabric in ruin. Commerce is to 
a large extent carried on under competition. This 
principle is legitimate and apparently necessary. But 
how excessive it has become under the stress of modern 
life ! It tends to enslave and to impoverish the weak and 
the inefficient and to intensify social inequalities in every 
direction. Desire for wealth is characteristic of the 
civilized man. But how much it has become a mere 
greed for gain to day ! It is the stimulus back of the 
intense speculation which marks the commercial life of the 
West. Through this passion the very safety of Society is 
often imperilled. It does not hesitate to grasp at the 
absolute control of great interests; it seeks to monopolize 
industries ; it gathers under its power even the food and 
fabrics of nations ; establishes autocratic ownerships called 
"corners," enhancing prices artificially beyond the abilities 
of the people to pay, and engendering dangerous discon- 
tent among the poor. The same greed of money is back 
of the criminal schemes so characteristic of to-day, which 
under the name of stock-companies, are used only to filch 
hard earnings from investors to fill the purses of the 
unscrupulous speculators. In truth, I see many great 
perils before Japan in its rapid appropriation of the ways 
of Western commerce. 

In Europe and America, already many of the gravest 
dangers are abroad through the working of the forces 
I have just mentioned. 80 far, they have been held 
in check by a strong social conservatism, but they 
threaten great calamities for the future. They will certain- 
ly work harm here if rashly allowed to control Japan's 
new life. Financial crises and crashes are common ex- 
periences in the West, but they are largely neutralized or 



566 



TRE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PART III 



remedied by the enormous productivity of new countries 
like America and the colonies of the European States. 

Here, in an old country whose productiveness has almost 
reached its maximum, there are no such ways of safety. 
Japan might easily impoverish itself and helplessly im- 
poverish itself, through a precipitate struggle for great 
wealth, that is, by letting great monopolies fasten them- 
selves upon its sources of production, and by inordinate and 
credulous speculative investments by masses of the people. 
Again, Western Society, by its excessive competition, 
speculations, and greed, has engendered tremendous forces 
which threaten the w T hole social fabric there. Trouble- 
some labor questions, strikes, riots, an unprecedented 
growth of socialistic and communistic theories and organi- 
zations now confront society in Europe and America in 
portentous forms. It is said that Europe is trembling over 
a social volcano which may burst forth with deadly vio- 
lence at any time. Japan must needs move very cautious- 
ly with these tremendous forces of Western commercial 
and social progress or it may rue the day it began to make 
them its ow 7 n. 

Nor is the transition that Japan is making into the 
scientific, rationalistic mood of the West any less free from 
dangers or from corresponding duties than its political and 
commercial transformations. The scientific mood is one 
of the greatest forces of human progress. Knowledge is 
true power. Ignorance is the source of a large part of 
human weakness and misfortune. Superstition is follow- 
ed by a train of evils and miseries. But even the scien- 
tific mood can lead to error. And it is true that not 
everything called science is true knowledge. The scien- 
tific man may be too hasty in drawing his conclusions 
or have too limited an observation. The scientific mood 
in its reaction from old faiths, from traditions, from 
what it finds to be superstitious and irrational, may 
go to opposite extremes as little justified by truth as 
the old faith. The French Eevolution of a century ago is 
a fearful example of what I mean. Then, the people in 
their hatred of all the old authority that held Society to- 
gether, enthroned what they called " Reason " as their god- 



1900 PHILOSOPHIC AND RELIGIOUS PERILS 567 



dess and did the most irrational things thinkable. Having 
overthrown the old, intolerable civil order, they overthrew 
with it the old moral sanctions and turned France into a 
very hell of violence, rapine, and murder. This extreme 
unbalanced revolt from superstition no sane man can look 
upon except with horror. Such awful crimes can be com- 
mitted in the name of Reason ! Eeason and Science are 
of inestimable value to human progress and can be of the 
highest service to Japan, but it should be clearly under- 
stood that they are valuable only as far as they really dis- 
close the truth. 

It is an interesting yet natural fact that the beginnings 
of every period of rationalistic thought have been charac- 
terized by disbelief in, and rejection of the teachings of 
traditional and organized Beligion. In the majority of cases 
this has been done in behalf of a larger and more reason- 
able faith. But in modern times the scientific mood is 
directed in large part by either a professed atheism, or by 
the theory that the human mind can know nothing of the 
objects of religious faith. These two attitudes of thought 
appear in the works of many of the scientists of the day. 
I do not wonder that the Japanese w T ho have been in- 
fluenced by modern science have inclined to the specula- 
tions of modern atheists and agnostics. These speculations 
have come in naturally with their recently opened study of 
"Western physical science and invention. But I am pro- 
foundly convinced that atheism and agnosticism are the 
result of only an extreme of one-sided knowledge. 

Furthermore, I believe, that they are fraught with the 
most serious dangers, not to Japan only, but also, and 
especially, to Europe and America. It would be a great 
mistake were the people of Japan to accept these specula- 
tions as the best products of even the rational thought of 
the West. The highest philosophy of the West is neither 
atheistic, nor even agnostic. Should these negative specula- 
tions become dominant in the philosophy and popular 
mood of this Empire, I believe that its present political, 
commercial, and social transformations would be deprived 
of their greatest possible safeguard, and that the 
national life would be exposed, with but feeble protection, 
to the dangers of which I have been speaking. 



568 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PART III 



This thought brings us to the goal to which the whole 
course of this argument has been tending. I have spoken 
of Japan's movement into popular government ; into world- 
wide international intercourse ; into the ways of modern 
industry, commerce, social culture, and science. I have 
spoken of the benefits likely to accompany these changes, 
of the dangers which beset them, and of the duties to 
which they summon your citizens. . Without faithful 
observance of these duties, as we have seen, the dangers are 
greatly to be feared and the benefits likely to be lost. 

The events of the present era therefore bring the Japan- 
ese people, first of all, face to face with Duty. Loyalty to the 
Constitution; intelligence and forbearance among partisans, 
and reverence for the wills of majorities are essential polit- 
ical duties. Justice, honor, caution, conservative pro- 
gress and the like are imperative in order to gain safe 
commercial and industrial welfare. In accepting the 
scientific spirit the people must be, above all, lovers and 
servants of the truth. Duty, that is obedience to moral 
law, is the guarantee and only guarantee for Japan's safe 
progress in the new life it has entered. 

But what is Moral Law ? It is, as the question puts it, 
" law." Whence derived ? Suppose we admit that it comes 
from the operation of mere use or convenience ; that it is 
more useful to be just than unjust, honest than treacherous, 
obedient than rebellious. What quality in human nature 
or elsewhere is there, however, that makes one line of con- 
duct useful or convenient and another line of conduct harm- 
ful or undesirable? It may be answered that human 
nature and all nature are so constituted that certain things 
are helpful to us and others injurious. If we were to con- 
tinue with this kind of argument we should be brought at 
last to the radical truth that there is, through an invari- 
able sequence of cause and effect, a fixed dependence of 
prosperity or adversity upon some things and acts rather 
than upon others ;that what is essentially a Moral Order lies 
in the nature of things. If, then, we may go on to say that 
morality therefore lies in the very substance of the Uni- 
verse, what line divides our thought from the meaning 
essential in religious faith, that the Moral Order of the Uni- 



1900 



WHEREIN IS JAPAN'S REAL SAFETY 



569 



verse is there because it is the expression of the Morality 
of the infinite and eternal Being in whom and of whom 
ths universe exists? Any real morality, intuitive or 
scientific implies, I think, the existence of all that is 
essential to a vital belief in God, that is to say, to Eeligion. 
To me, true Ethics and Religion are as inseparable as stream 
and fountain. 

My culminating thought is, therefore, that if Japan 
would go along its present path in safety and ascend by it 
to greater heights of prosperity and happiness, its people 
should accept not only the exact sight of guiding science 
but should see how Science itself moves under the light of 
the eternal Sun. My plea is really for an appreciation of 
the worth and need to this nation of all that is funda- 
mental in that which is named Eeligion. Do not mis- 
understand the word Eeligion. By it I do not mean any- 
thing that savors of superstition. I mean by it simply 
that supreme sense of the soul which is conscious of infinite 
and eternal Being as Creator, Guide, and Immanent 
Power and Life in the atom and in the star, in 
the feeblest stir of sensation and in the grandest 
thought. I sympathize deeply with those earnest minds 
of this nation who feel that the safely of their beloved Em- 
pire lies in the reign here of true morality. I welcome the 
efforts of those who are trying to found for Japan a science 
of morality. I profoundly believe, however, that unless 
the morality so sought has for its sanction an Eternal 
Eight and Wrong their efforts will in the end come to 
naught. The high, pure souls who are seeking to establish 
a moral science without religious sanction I am sure can- 
not so impress their judgments upon common minds that 
they will bear the stress of " the wild turmoil of modern 
thought." The common mind cannot understand and 
feel the pure purport of high ideals. The sublime theism of 
the philosopher necessarily tends to be a crude and even a 
superstitious belief in ordinary minds. So the high utilitar- 
ianism, of the atheistic or agnostic moralist tends to be crude 
and coarse selfishness among common men. Which state is 
preferable for the masses of mankind, a religious faith 
which, though tending to become crude and superstitious, 



570 



THE JAPAN UNITARIAN MISSION PAET III 



does wield a mighty authority, or a utilitarian ethics which 
the ignorant and selfish mind easily ignores ? Better for 
mankind that it be " suckled in a creed outworn " than 
given over to what may be the sway of selfish license. 

Dr. E. E. Abbot, a thinker of high repute in America, 
lately wrote, " Theological Agnostics will soon be succeeded 
by Ethical Agnostics ; the doubt or disbelief of God will 
soon be followed by doubt or disbelief of the Moral Law 
itself. Moral beings could not be moral beings if morality 
were not a universal law above them, — nay, the all-per- 
vading law of the Universe itself. It stands written in 
the nature of things that, amidst the fury of contending 
passions, the moral ideal itself shall go to the wall, unless 
it drink omnipotence from the Divine Idea." 

To a recognition of the Divine Idea, then, I summon 
you and the people of this Empire. Let this become clear 
to the vision of the people, establishing and sanctioning 
the virtues which lie at the source of civil order ; assuring 
the worth of justice, honor, and truth among men in 
their social relations ; giving real force to the ethical in- 
stinct which now saves the world from destructive passion ; 
and I am confident that the way Japan has taken can 
lead only upward and onward to a happier, more pro- 
sperous, and useful place for the Empire in the great house- 
hold of nations. History shows that so long as high, 
serious, devout moral purpose has ruled men, their careers 
have been only a succession of triumphant advances. Only 
with the absence or failure of this purpose has human pro- 
gress faltered or ceased. It is as true to-day as it was in 
the times of the ancients that — " Eighteousness exalteth 
a nation." But Eighteousness exists among men just 
because it issues from One whose Will is actuated by an 
Eternal Eight. 



IV 

MEMORIALS 

OF 

THE CIVIL WAR 

1859 = 1865 



I saw, across the stormy sky, 
A white-crowned eagle westward fly ; 
A blinding flash and cloud-shot sound ;— 
He lay faint, fluttering, on the ground. 

The forest swayed with wind and rain, 
And rising torrents swept the main ; 
The tempest passed, a brightening west 
Shone calmly on the^lowering east. 

The forest rocked itself to sleep, 
The torrents surged on toward the deep, 
A rainbow crowned the quiet day : 
But near my feet the eagle lay, # 

With helpless talons, prostrate crest, 

With outstretched wings and drabbled breast, 

A monarch of celestial birth, 

From* heaven stricken down to earth. 

And yet not lifeless. Soon his eyes 
From death to life began to rise. 
Then, struggling over bush and slough, 
He grasped an oak tree's sturdy bough. 

'Mid gnarled bough, with branch combined, 
Through poisonous vines and twigs entwined, 
Up, up he forced his way, to where 
The topmost summit pierced the air. 

Then, in the sunshine clear and warm, 
Eeleased from earth, saved from the storm, 
His mighty pinions wide he spread, 
And on a heavenward spiral sped. 

" Freedom in America," 

Rochester, New York, 1869. 



PART FOUR 



MEMORIALS 

OF 

THE CIVIL WAR 



In the second chapter of the First Part of these " Mem- 
ories " I gave, in outline, my experience as an enlisted sold- 
ier ; and I enumerated other relationships that 1 had to the 
armies of the American Union during the struggle between 
the States of the South and the North. Directly connected 
with this Civil War are various papers which I have at 
times published in the years since then. Besides, as giving 
rather interesting information about some unusual personal 
experiences, I have still many letters which were written 
from the army and were preserved by my parents. Some 
of these papers and letters will be welcome, I believe, to my 
friends. 

I. 

For instance, I know of an episode in the preparations 
which John Brown made for his attack on Harper's Ferry 
in 1859 that has some historical value. 

At the time of " the Baid," like every one else in the 
neighborhood, I was wildly excited over the fact that John 
Brown had been using my native town as the place for 
his immediate arrangements for the attack. I had seen 



574 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 



the old man, in the summer of 1859 during his stay in 
Chambersburg, as "Isaac Smith" ; and I remember vividly, 
yet, the crowd and the tumult in Carlisle, soon after I had 
entered Dickinson College when two of Brown's men were 
brought into town ; they having been captured in their flight, 
on the mountains near by. They were being taken south, 
to Virginia. 

A few years ago I wrote the following article, com- 
memorative of my boyhood's recollection of this incident 
happening in connection with the famous "Harper's Ferry 
Baid." 



An Appeal to John Brown. 

One of this year's notable anniversaries, 1909, is the 
semi-centennial of John Brown's raid upon Harper's 
Ferry, Virginia. This event calls to mind an interesting 
bit of unwritten history. Making it public may set right 
some widespread misjudgments ; besides, it will confirm, 
yet more, the fact of Brown's almost complete personal 
isolation during his momentous venture. 

In the summer of 1859, the town of Chambersburg, 
Pennsylvania, like the other border-towns of the time, was 
deeply interested in the portentous political struggle then 
going on among the American States over Negro slavery. 
In appearance, Chambersburg held anything but an aboli- 
tion population. Indeed, it is certain that an acknowledged 
white abolitionist there would have received no social 
favor ; and that, as an antislavery agitator, he would have 
found the attitude of the community not at all to his 
liking. There was, consequently, no popular sympathy 
ready to welcome the announcement, made about the 
middle of August, by handbills coming from some unknown 
source, that on Saturday, the 20th, Frederick Douglass 
would speak in the Public Hall. Naturally, a widespread 
curiosity was aroused to hear the notorious black orator, 
and on the advertised evening the hall was crowded. 



1859 " FEED ; ' DOUGLASS IN CHAMBERSBURG 575 

Very little in the way of a newspaper record of the 
event remains. In 1864, the town was destroyed by Con- 
federate cavalry. Almost without sufficient warning to 
allow the people to escape, most of the town was swept 
away by an awful incendiary conflagration. Of course, 
the files of the newspapers published there were burned. 
However, in after years, an editor of one of the papers, 
The Franklin Bepository, succeeded by searching in many 
directions in partially making good the loss of some of the 
more recent issues, A large part of the numbers for 1859 
was fortunately replaced. 

Not long ago the present writer was in Chambersburg 
and had the privilege of looking over these old papers. 
Luckily the issue for August 24th, 1859, was among them, 
and there, in its local columns, were two characteristic 
notes on the Douglass address. The Bepository was the 
leading Eepublican paper of southern Pennsylvania, 
prospering exceptionally well under the proprietorship of 
Hon. A. K. McClure, afterwards one of the directing 
minds for Pennsylvania in the Civil War, and later one of 
our country's oldest and most respected journalists. The first 
of these notes, under the heading, " The Other Douglass " 
was : 

" On Saturday evening last, the town hall was very 
well filled to listen to Douglass, not Hon. Stephen A. 
Douglas, but a no less distinguished man, the notorious 
Frederick Douglass of New York state, the Negro orator 
and editor of an abolition newspaper in the western part 
of the Empire State. 

" His theme was the wrongs of his race. He handled 
his subject in a style which would have been creditable to 
many, very many of our white orators. He is, without 
doubt, an extraordinary man. He is highly eloquent, has 
unlimited command of his voice, which breathes forth, 
betimes the sweetest accents, and again sw T ells to stentorian 
volume — and his gestures are graceful ; on the whole we 
do not hesitate about pronouncing him a first class speaker. 
We can easily excuse him — a black man — for advocating 
the doctrine of immediate and unconditional emancipation ; 
but, if such a thing were practicable, it would be altogether 



576 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 



inexpedient. If slavery was to become rooted out, and the 
black remain among the whites, we honestly believe a war 
of extermination would soon be the result. The history 
of the 'Ked Man' is sufficient to prove, beyond cavil, that 
two distinct races cannot dwell as equals, in harmony, upon 
the same soil. If slavery is to be abolished, we must, at 
the same time, provide for the colonization of the Negroes.' ' 

Having disposed of the orator and his plea with this 
genial toleration for the one and mild antagonism for the 
other, the editor in the next column turned the event into 
a diverting lash with which to scourge his party's op- 
ponents. The exigencies of local politics, the opportunity 
to pluck political safety from this evident danger, the good 
chance to turn away from the Eepublicans a probable hue 
and cry, stirred him to write under the startling heading, 
" High Treason ;"— 

" The Nigger Democracy, in rage at their loss of 
influence and power in the South, are beginning to turn 
their backs upon their former friends and allies. Last 
Saturday night, their leader, Fred Douglass, the notorious 
Negro orator, delivered a flaming address to his friends 
and admirers, in the public hall. We noticed one of the 
editors of the Valley Spirit" (an organ of the Democrats), 
" sitting in a front seat, — evidently as the 'right supporter' 
of the sable speaker. What is democracy coming to ? 
They have brought this man here for political effect. Are 
they now about to don the garb of abolitionism ? If they 
are after this game, why not pursue it openly ? How did 
it happen that the principal editor of the Spirit (who lives 
in Washington), and this woolly-headed son of Africa, 
both dropped so suddenly and unexpectedly into our midst 
about the same time ? " 

These entertaining comments on the event and the man 
constitute all there is of record now concerning that 
mysterious visit of Frederick Douglass to Chambersburg 
fifty years ago. 

There happened, however, to be among the hearers of 
the address a small boy of the town who listened intently, 
captivated by the marvelous eloquence of the speaker. 
And near him, faintly remembered now, sat an impressive 



1859 JOHN BROWN'S ATTACK ON HARPER'S FERRY 577 

man who had come with the crowd, and who went away 
with it, unnoticed and unknown. 

The boy wondered much over the Colored man's 
masterful oratory, yet, as the years passed, he retained of 
what he had heard but little more than a pertinent story, 
told with much seeming gusto. In substance the story 
ran : " You think it strange, do you, that I am here 
making this plea? Well, you won't when you hear 
about a certain tribe of monkeys that live in Africa. 
When one of those beasts is caught in a trap and the 
others find out that they can't set him free, they just hang 
around, as near as they can get, and howl. That is what 
I am doing. Plenty of my own kind are tight in a 
terrible trap over yonder border. Well, here I am." 

With that night, and with as little notice of his going as 
of his coming, Douglass disappeared from the town. 

The impassive old man who had listened to Douglass 
remained in Chambersburg for a short time, gradually 
making the acquaintance of a few of its citizens, as " Isaac 
Smith," inquiring of them about some purchasable large 
tract of land which he might buy for the use of a farming 
colony that he was organizing. Mr. " Smith" aroused no 
special curiosity. At length he was no longer seen in 
" Lawyers' Bow," and his piles of bulky boxes, containing 
his ' ' farm implements" had been moved elsewhere. No 
one took further thought about him. 

But, on Oct. 17th, Chambersburg,— not Chambersburg 
only but all communities of the United States, — were 
astounded at hearing newsboys cry papers announcing : — 
" Great excitement! An armed band of Abolitionists are 
reported as having full possession of the United States 
arsenal at Harper's Ferry." 

The rest of the story is well known. " Isaac Smith " 
was " John Brown of Osawatomie." His raid became a 
a fatal disaster; and his " farm colonists " as revolutionists, 
met with tragic defeat. John Brown's body soon began 
to " moulder in the grave," and his " soul " to start on its 
fateful, yet glorious " marching on." 

Twenty years afterwards, the boy auditor of Douglass 



578 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR 



PART IV 



at Chambersburg had become the minister of " All Souls 
Church " in Washington City. During his ministry, 
Frederick Douglass, then honored by the United States 
Government with an important office in the District of 
Columbia, was a regular attendant at the services of this 
church. 

At one of the social gatherings of the parish, the minister, 
recently installed in office, puzzled Mr. Douglass by the 
comment, " There are some very curious turns in life. 
One of them is the fact that I am your minister." " Why ? " 
queried Mr. Douglass. " I happpen to remember," was 
the answer, " that before the war, in 1859, when I was 
only a schoolboy, I was one of your listeners at an anti- 
slavery meeting which you held in a small Pennsylvania 
town, Chambersburg." " Oh, is that so ?" " Yes!" rejoined 
the minister, " I sat on the front row of the seats, directly 
before you. I was curious to see the Colored abolitionist 
that everybody talked about. I did think you were a 
wonderful orator. But, of course, my boy brain did not 
follow you very closely. In fact, the only thing you said 
that stuck in my memory was a story which made every- 
one laugh, and applaud. It was about yourself and a 
tribe of African monkeys." The recollection of this story 
greatly amused Mr. Douglass. And it started him to 
talking freely. In the further conversation he made 
known the following interesting and in some respects, 
very valuable bit of ante-civil war history. 

" That lecturing in Chambersburg," he said in effect, 
" was only a shallow pretence. The real reason for my 
being there was something much more important. I 
wanted to get at John Brown before it was too late ; — that 
is, I wished, if possible, to prevent him from going to 
Harper's Ferry. Some of us who knew of what he was 
about to do, not only felt sure that his attempt would fail, 
but we feared greatly that it would do serious harm to the 
whole anti-slavery movement. My lecture was a mere 
blind. If you had seen me the next morning, you would 
have seen me walking along the creek towards Kennedy's 
Mill, — I think that was the name of the mill. Not far 
from the town, an old man, whose slouched hat hung 



1859 Douglass' vain appeal to john brown 579 



down over his face, w r as sitting on the bank of the creek, 
fishing. I took a seat near him, and we had a long talk. 
That man was John Brown. In the end, I found that I 
could not buclge him from his going on with his plans. 
I was miserably troubled when I left him, and, as soon as 
possible I got away from that part of the country. Well, 
it wasn't long after that, that the terrible end came." 

Evidently, then, so this story teaches, Frederick Doug- 
lass takes part in the great struggle for the abolition of 
slavery in this country as a conservative, when he was 
confronted by the prospect of the awful revolution at- 
tempted by John Brown. Evidently, too, he did his best 
to turn Brown from his chosen course, when, to judge by 
the impulses that commonly sway men, he ought to have 
encouraged even his forlorn hope. 

Also, this story makes it clear that John Brown was, in 
a profound sense of the words, the self-appointed champion 
of an anti-slavery revolution by force of arms ; that he 
acted almost alone, and certainly acted without the en- 
dorsement or support of the political party which was then 
leading the anti-slavery agitation. 

And further, the story shows that Chambersburg at the 
time of Douglass' visit was, contrary to common repute, in 
no way, by intention, a friendly shelter for abolitionists. 
Probably there was not one citizen of the place to whom 
John Brown was known during his stay there in the 
summer of 1859, or who would have stood by him in 
carrying forward his purpose. 

The great fact is that John Brown must take his place 
in history as a knight of liberty, daring forth almost alone ; 
finding his justification wholly in the fulfilled issue of 
events. 

John Brown is now a transfigured hero. But he would 
have been branded forever as a traitorous criminal had not 
the after fate of the nation given him a martyr's corona- 
tion. 



580 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 



II. 

Major General George H. Thomas : 

AN INCIDENT OF INTEREST 

I have spoken of the engrossing interest I felt in the 
events immediately preceding the great struggle between 
the American Slave and Free States. Not long after I 
entered Dickinson College, I became acquainted with some 
of the younger of the officers of the national cavalry then 
stationed at "The Barracks" located just outside the town ; 
one of them, a lieutenant, becoming my friend. In com- 
mand there, in the spring of 1861, was Major George H. 
Thomas of Virginia. 

Directly after my father had cancelled the enlist- 
ment I had made at the time Fort Sumter had 
been attacked and I had been taken to Chambers- 
burg, I heard that a squadron of cavalry from Carlisle, on its 
way to protect Harper's Ferry, had encamped in a grove 
just north of the town. I hurried out to the grove to see 
who were there. I found my friend, Lieutenant Arnold ; 
I remained with him for the rest of the afternoon. As the 
lieutenant and I lay on the ground talking ; near by, on a 
camp-chair sat Major Thomas, wholly silent, and seeming- 
ly much depressed. I ventured to ask the lieutenant, 
" What is the matter with the Major ? " His reply was 
that, the day before, the cavalry had been suddenly 
ordered to make this march ; and that the Major was 
much troubled over what he ought to do ; — stay with the 
army ? or go to the help of his seceding State ? 

" That's what he is thinking about," answered the lieut- 
enant. 

The next morning I saw the cavalry on its way, to 



1862 LETTERS OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE 



581 



Harper's Ferry. Major Thomas was riding at the head 
of the column. 

The great question had been answered. 

Soon afterwards the major was made a colonel, and 
had begun the famous career now so well known as that of 
one of the most successful of the commanders of the armies 
of the Union. 



Personal Experiences as told in my 
Letters from the Army. 

During that summer of 1861, as I have already said, I 
was at home. I spent much of those months in the 
general military hospital which had been located in 
Chambersburg. 

Through the next winter I was at Princeton, going, for 
. the mid-winter vacation, to my parents who were for the 
time in Washington City. While there I was often at 
the hospitals doing a little something for our disabled 
soldiers. 

In the next mid-summer, as already noted, I gained, at 
last, my dearest wish of those days ; — entrance into the 
army of the Union as an enlisted soldier. 

My letters, written during the eventful year following, 
have, probably, very little in them of general historic 
importance. But they are of considerable value person- 
ally. They give descriptions, commonplace enough, of 
the daily life of a very youthful soldier, which are, how- 
ever, excellent personal mementoes and character-exhibits. 

Most noticeable in them, I find an evident effort, re- 
curring many times, to make light of what was happening. 



582 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 



in order that my mother might not give way to the fore- 
bodings about me which constantly distressed her. Chiefly 
because of a nervous illness, my mother could never become 
reconciled to the fact that her only child was in the army, 
exposed to its hardships and its perils. 

My enlistment began on August 6th, 1862. Four days 
later, from " Camp Curtm " in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 
I wrote ;— 

" I am at last in camp as one of " ye bold sojer boys." 
I am well and highly pleased with my odd situation. 

At the depot, as acting orderly, I formed the company ; 
and at their head, marched up town — and out to camp. I 
shall be the regular " orderly " if the men do not think me 
too young. 

I detailed a guard ; went for tents ; got them ; and I 
really felt ashamed of myself to see those poor fellows 
laden with tents, and poles, and pins, etc. I was not carry- 
ing anything at all, but was only marching along side. — I 
can not tell you of the fun of the evening: — two men 
dressed as an elephant ; the tossing of men in blankets ; 
singing and having a good time generally. 

I begin to believe that soldiers are really the happiest, 
most careless men alive. Capt. Doebler's men last night 
marched to our quarters and gave us three cheers and a 
<{ tiger/ ' The moon shone brightly and everything seemed 
glad. It is useless, I tell you, to mourn over our hard lot ; 
for a jollier set of fellows than we are can not be found. 

I trust that I am going in God's name and strength. I 
am happy as the day is long. I am happy, — and why 
should you be sad ? When you cry we laugh, and when 
you laugh we laugh too. God will guide us and do as He 
will. Trust in Him. Good bye. 

My love to all friends, and to yourselves. God bless 
you." 

"With this message to my parents, I began my year of 
" soldiering." 



1862 



IN THE MARYLAND CAMPAIGN 



583 



The next six weeks were full of rapidly succeeding 
changes. In the organization of my company, as " Com- 
pany D., 126th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers," I 
was appointed Third Sergeant. Our first encampment, 
after leaving Harrisbury for the front, was with the " Re- 
serve Army of Defense," south of Washington City, not 
far beyond the fl Arlington House," Virginia. 

My" second promotion then occurred in my being de- 
tailed by Gen. Samuel D. Sturgis, at the time commanding 
the " Reserve Army," to become a non-commissioned 
officer on his staff in the impending reorganization of the 
army for what is known as the " Maryland Campaign." 
I was appointed " Ordnance Sergeant for the Second 
Division of the Ninth Army Corps," — General Sturgis 
commanding the Division. 

The next letter, of those now in my possession, was 
written from " near Sharpsburg," Maryland on " Septem- 
ber 18th," the day after the battle of Antietam, It reads — 

" I have seen very hard service since I last wrote, but 
am now safely through it. I can not write the hundredth 
part of all I have experienced. 

I was sent to Washington after ammunition when I 
last w 7 rote you. Well ! after hard trials I managed to 
catch up with General Sturgis at Middletown, by travel- 
ling night and day." 



I interrupt the transcribing of this letter to insert here a 
paper which I prepared for a meeting of the " Massachu- 
setts Commandery of the Loyal Legion," some years after- 
wards. It tells the story of that adventure w T ith the ammu- 
nition which, with the " hard trials " of which I wrote, I 
carried from Washington to the advancing army. 



584 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 



IV. 

A Bio Load on Young Shoulders 

A STORY OF THE MARYLAND CAMPAIGN, 1862 

Sergeant Mack had hardly passed his nineteenth year 
when the big load was put upon his shoulders. He was 
unprepared for the burden. But he was in superb health ; 
also, he was by temperament sanguine ; and, upon 
occasion, could be recklessly insistent in carrying out hip. 
purposes. He had left his College that he might join the 
army of the Union ; and he had taken into his country's 
service the enthusiastic self-assurance, and the fearlessness 
of dignitaries which is common among college boys. His 
enlistment was made in 1862, under the stimulus of the 
great crisis that had then befallen the cause of the Union. 
Appointed to a sergeancy in his company, he had should- 
ered some petty responsibilities in the march of his 
regiment towards the front. 

Just then General Pope's disastrous defeats were taking 
place ; and Sergeant Mack has seen the chaotic retreats of 
the Army of Virginia into the fortifications surrounding 
the Capital City. After some days of service there a bit of 
good fortune fell to him. He was detailed for extra duty 
at the headquarters of the Keserve Army of Defense at 
Alexandria, Virginia. 

As September opened, Gen. McClellan was reinvested 
with military authority, and had begun the reorganization 
of General Pope's broken forces in connection with his 
own Army of the Peninsula. He created three Grand 
Divisions, which were to extend from the Potomac river 
into Central Maryland, advancing to give battle to Lee's in- 
vaders coming from the west Gen. Sturgis, Sergeant Mack's 
commander, was transferred, in the new order of things, to 
service in the field with the Eight Grand Division. So 
quickly and effectively had Gen. McClellan's plans been 
put into operation, that by the 9th of September the 
reorganized army was practically in the positions chosen 
for it, and was ready for the movements that were then 
begun. But, while ready for the march, much yet re- 



1862 



IN THE MARYLAND CAMPAIGN 



585 



mained to be done to make the army formidable. The 
General Quartermaster's Department, for example, had 
been overtaxed in the reorganization of the disordered forces ; 
and it labored under most confusing disadvantages. Then, 
the supplies of arms, and particularly of small ammunition, 
were dangerously insufficient. So serious was the lack of 
ammunition in Gen. Sturgis's new command, the Second 
Division of the Ninth Corps, that it was decided not to 
wait for the Headquarters Ordnance Train, which was to 
follow the advancing army. 

Gen. Sturgis undertook a personal venture to get what 
his Division needed. On September 9th, consequently, 
when he had received the orders which started the forward 
movement of the army, he sent for Sergeant Mack and 
in substance said to the boy : — 

" Sergeant, I have appointed you Ordnance Sergeant of 
this Division. Take the headquarters teams. Go to 
Washington at once. Capt. Eawolle will give you your 
orders. Get back as soon as you can." 

In this way it was that Sergeant Mack received an 
important promotion, and was initiated into, the happen- 
ings which make up my story. 

' That night the new Ordnance Sergeant with his 
emergency expedition was well on the way back to 
Washington City. The boy had been ordered to under- 
take a critical service which would far better have been 
imposed upon an experienced man. But he had accepted 
his burden willingly, and even with confidence. Gen. 
Sturgis had sought to provide for the undertaking 
every means needed for its success. He had transferred 
his headquarters baggage and equipment to ordinary 
mule-teams, giving to Sergeant Mack the four picked 
teams of horses that had been chosen for the special use 
of the Commander and his staff. The wagons were 
exceptionally capacious and were strongly built. Each of 
them was drawn by four powerful horses that had not 
yet been subjected to severe labor. As far as resources 
were at command, the little train could hardly have been 
much bettered for its work. 

Sergeant Mack personally was not very well equip- 



586 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 



ped to act as an independent leader of such an ex- 
pedition. Under the extraordinary stress of events then, 
he had to go without a good deal that might have 
made his service easier. For instance, he could not 
be provided with a proper uniform for his office, or a horse 
to ride. Horses were few and the demand for those few, 
for other uses, was imperative. The sergeant, however, 
cared little for these privations. He had started upon his 
errand with " a heart for any fate." He was possessed 
by the conviction that everything must and would give 
way before his effort to get that ammunition, and that no 
time should be lost in making his return to his Corps. He 
knew that, excepting the cartridges carried on the 
persons of the men of his Division, there was then no ammu- 
nition available for them in a possible battle. It mattered 
little to him, therefore, that his way must be made either 
on foot or inside the wagons. As it happened, most of the 
fifteen miles of the return to the city he was a wagon 
passenger. Speed was imperative and the wagons were 
empty. Consequently, the ten miles, traversed before 
the halt for the night was made, were far more comfortable 
for his horse-riding drivers than for himself. Two or 
more hours of involuntary jolting, falling, rolling and 
holding on to anything that could be laid hold of, would 
not have left the boy more wearied than he was when he 
ordered camp for the night, 

Early the next morning Sergeant Mack's wagons were 
far within the city ; and not much later were stopped before 
the buildings of the Department of War. 

The college student, volunteer soldier knew nothing 
then of official routine or of the vexing delays of red-tape. 
Eager and confident he left his wagons and ran into the 
"War Office. But the impetuous youth pushed at once 
against a mass of obstacles. Scores of other persons were 
already there, each evidently intent upon doing what he 
bad in mind. He soon found, also, that the officials were 
much busied with affairs that were not his. Yet, insistent 
inquiry at length took him to the room where he must go 
for a hearing, No one there, however, seemed willing 
to give him attention. Nevertheless, his self-assurance for 



1862 



IN THE MARYLAND CAMPAIGN 



587 



a while supported him bravely. He made many at- 
tempts to open a way for his business. But, as he saw 
many precious minutes passing in vain, his assurance and 
courage weakened. Of course, he was nothing more in 
others' eyes than a very young, and much soiled-looking, 
non-commissioned officer. How far he would have suc- 
cumbed to the obstacles he met it is hard to tell. At this 
critical moment, however, he recognized at a desk some- 
what distant, an acquaintance of years before, — a school- 
mate. Thoughtless, except that he might complete his 
purpose, he shouted to his old mate across the room. Bold 
youth, he was ! But as good luck served him, he found im- 
mediately an effective friend. It was not long before the 
special call sent from the Ninth Corps had received a 
hearing. The hour had hardly passed before Sergeant 
Mack had secured fully empowered requisitions upon the 
arsenal authorities for the supplies asked for. Grateful 
and much elated he hastened from the Ordnance Office to 
make his next venture, the procuring of orders from the 
General Quartermaster for forage for his horses and rations 
for the drivers. 

But as he went out of the building he met with a shock 
that almost stunned him. There were his wagons. But 
where were the drivers ? Not one of these was in sight ; 
and the sixteen horses, all tangled in their harness, were 
heading many ways across the street. 

Now it was characteristic of Sergeant Mack, however 
easily he might be disheartened by petty hindrances, to 
begin to grow resolute when obstacles tended towards their 
worst. In the face of this calamity, consequently, after 
the initial effects of the shock had passed, he was strangely 
stimulated. He became reckless. A desperate aiood came 
over him. At once he set himself to work in a sort of 
fury. It was not long before he had straightened out all 
the teams, and had hitched the leading horses to tree- 
boxes bordering the F Street side-walk. Driven then to 
practical foolhardihood ; wholly careless of consequences, the 
sergeant rushed into the General Quartermaster's offices. 
He was no longer the patient, deferential applicant who 
had hesitatingly tried to get to the Chief of Ordnance. 



588 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR 



PART IV 



Door-guards, interrupting clerks, indifferent officials were 
no longer barriers to him. With heedless audacity he assum- 
ed possession of authority back of what he did. He went 
directly into the Quartermaster General's private office. 
His cap was off but he showed no other sign of reverence 
as he stepped to the front of the general's desk and 
said, without further preface, " Are you General Myers? " 

The general looked up quickly, but the sergeant hastily 
continued, " Gen. Sturgis has sent me for ammunition, 
and I have these requisitions for forage." 

" Young man/' interrupted the general " do you know 
to whom you are speaking ? " 

" Yes," returned the sergeant, " you are General Myers. 
I have four wagons outside. My drivers have deserted. 
I am alone, and I must get back to the army at once. I 
must have some drivers and forage, and I want you to 
help me." 

Something, — either the miserable facts, or the boy's 
manner — appealed strongly to the grim man of routine 
and discipline. He did not rebuke the intense pleader. 
Of course, a gross breach in the discipline of the service 
had been made ; yet, possibly, the very excess of wrong 
that the boy had done was his protection and help. At 
any rate, the immediate result of Sergeant Mack's devil- 
may-care sally into the Quartermaster General's office was 
all that he could have asked for. 

Years afterwards, when this incident was recalled to 
Gen. Myers by the transgressor himself, the general 
remarked, " My impulse was to put you under arrest, but 
I saw that you did not know what you were doing." 

Sergeant Mack hurried back to his wagons encouraged 
by having received full directions and ample authority for 
putting things to rights. 

But, first, he must get drivers. So, unhitching one of 
the saddle horses and buckling the harness over neck and 
haunches he rode at a wild gallop to the " Contraband " 
Camp in the city's suburbs. He made short work there 
of selecting four drivers from a clamorous crowd of negro 
refugees. The formalities of release and enlistment were 
soon closed; the " darkeys' " bundles were soon packed 



1862 



IN THE MAKYLAND CAMPAIGN 



589 



and shouldered ; and at mid-day the sergeant, followed by 
his motley squad of black recruits, was on his way back to 
the waiting wagons. 

The wagons had not been disturbed. 

The new drivers took hold of their work intelligently and 
in time they proved to be as worthy as the white deserters 
had been worthless. With one exception they happened 
to be members of the same family. Old Tom was about 
five feet in height, squat-bodied, husky of voice but very alert 
in movement. The sergeant made him master of the little 
train. Joe, his son, was nearly six feet tall, exceptional- 
ly powerful in body; with an intelligent face, always ready, 
as the coming days showed, with laughter, stories, and with 
song. Jim, the driver of the third wagon, was much like his 
cousin Joe : not so large, nor so self-reliant, perhaps, nor 
quite so exhuberant of mood. But Sam, from a Virginia 
plantation near the home of the other three, proved to be 
much their inferior in various ways. He was a slow moving, 
yet rather irritable fellow ; willing enough to serve, but not 
quick of perception or skilful in doing his work. 

With the deserted wagons well manned, Sergeant 
Mack's confidence was renewed. He was all eagerness, 
then, for the next moves. 

Without delay he obtained some bags of oats at a 
Government warehouse for his horses, and some ra- 
tions for the drivers. By three o'clock his little train 
had entered the grounds of the great Seventh Street 
Arsenal. The sergeant was determined, if possible, to 
have his wagons loaded and off on their journey before 
the day should close. He was not dismayed even when 
he saw the hundred and more teams of the General 
Ammunition Train waiting, lined around the arsenal 
grounds and along the different magazines, receiving the 
stores which they were to carry with the utmost despatch 
to the front. Sergeant Mack knew how urgent the 
business of those wagons was, but he had urgent business 
for his wagons, too. So, still reckless of consequences, he 
again assumed a perilous hazard. He learned just where 
the special supplies he w T anted w 7 ere to be had, and 
then, peremptorily ordered the drivers of the wagons 



590 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 



stationed there to haul aside and give him place. Not 
one man questioned his authority, so imperious was his 
voice and his flourish of papers so commanding. 

Existing notes do not tell just how much ammunition 
was packed into the wagons, but the sergeant remembers 
that his requisitions were so large that each of the wagons 
was much overloaded, However, those splendid horses 
seemed to be capable of bearing the strain of almost any 
load that the wagons could carry. 

Before sunset, Sergeant Mack's train was far out on 
North Seventh Street moving heavily, though steadily, on its 
return to the army ; its weary "commander'* lying on some 
bags of oats in the front wagon, —very much wearied but 
highly elated over the day's successes. No halt was order- 
ed until midnight. 

Three hours after midnight the start for another day's 
march was made. By sunrise the camping grounds, that 
had been left Tuesday evening, were reached. But the 
fields there were empty and drear. Only a short halt was 
allowed. The sergeant was determined that, if possible by 
forced marching he could do it, he would overtake the 
Ninth Corps that day. Unfortunately, however, in leaving 
the old grounds he began a series of mistakes — by no 
fault of his own — that almost ended in disastrous failure 
for him. At the farm-house near which Gen. Sturgis had 
had his head-quarters, he received a message left for him, 
saying, that the Second Division " had taken the road 
towards Clarksburg." Following that road Sergeant Mack, 
with each mile, was not nearing but really separating him- 
self from the army corps he was seeking. An hour for rest 
and food was spent at noon. Further inquiries gave him no 
more definite information. He could not know that im- 
portant changes in the movements of the Ninth Corps had 
been oirbred that day. There was nothing, under the 
circumstances, for him to do but to keep on as he was 
going. His main direction, he was convinced, must be 
right. 

Thursday night came. Still there was no reliable in- 
formation about the troops he was seeking. But the 
sergeant had no inclination to stop with the night-fall. 



1S62 



IN THE MARYLAND CAMPAIGN 



591 



The road was fairly good, and the horses, apparently, but 
little fatigued. The sky was clear ; illumined by brilliant 
starlight. 

More and more alone with the advancing night, those four 
laboring wagons, moved steadily on over the undulating 
road ; their leader expectant that the next morning would 
surely bring an end to his wanderings. The drivers passed 
the night hours cheering their horses ; singing, the while, 
quaint plantation melodies and interchanging rude, fun- 
makings. 

At about ten o'clock an excited shout from Sam, of the 
hindmost w 7 agon, brought the train to a stop. 

" Say, Marse Sergeant," Sam cried, running forward, 
"de tail-board ob my w T agon is broke, and I'm a loosin' 
all my boxes." 

Sure enough ; — two thousand rounds of the precious 
ammunition had just fallen from Sam's w T agon and were 
lying in the deep dust of the road. But w 7 here was the 
tail-board of the wagon ? And say ! where were three 
more of the priceless boxes ? 

Nearly an eighth of a mile back on the road, one of the 
cases was found unbroken ; and a little beyond that w r ere 
the other two boxes and the tail-board which, evidently, 
had given way there under heavy pressure and the rough 
going. Lucky it was that the break had been found so 
soon. The accident, however, brought about another 
midnight halt, with oats and grass for the horses, and 
''hardtack," (biscuits), with coffee for sergeant and men. 

Before Friday -morning dawned the wagons were again 
on the move and had reached Clarksburg, more than half 
the way to Frederick City, a main objective for the army ; 
Sergeant Mack still seeking vainly among persons he met 
for reliable information of the position of the Ninth Corps. 
By this time, if he was not exactly "a lost leader," he was 
certainly astray, even though wandering in a direction that, 
in the main, was right. In fact, Gen. Sturgis, that very 
morning was near New Market only about twelve miles 
to the north, on the highway between Baltimore and 
Frederick. 

Again, unable to know the facts, and also not know- 



592 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 



ing just what else to do, Sergeant Mack could only keep 
on as he was going, convinced that, somehow, he was 
nearing his goal. But a new obstacle arose then. The 
condition of the superb animals that were hauling the 
overloaded wagons began to make the commander of our 
train anxious. They had already lost much of their sleek 
look, and were showing some signs of distress. They 
had been on the move, without real rest, since Tuesday 
evening, bearing all the while much more of a strain than 
should ever have been imposed upon them. 

The most promising thing to do, as advised by some 
officers whom the sergeant met at Clarksburg, seemed to 
be for him to go directly on to Frederick City where he 
would be on the national highway, and most likely to find 
the needed guidance. With renewed hope the sergeant 
took up his march again, early Friday morning. Not far 
to the west of Clarksburg, however, as ill fortune had it, 
the little train was once more led astray. It went too far 
westward among the cross ways there ; and the afternoon 
was not far advanced before Sergeant Mack found himself, 
with his over-heavy wagons and over-wearied horses, 
wandering among the rough, hilly roads that pass through 
the forests around the mountain mass that lies to the south 
of Frederick. 

Then, some excessively exhausting hardships began. 
They were very near Sergeant Mack's complete undoing. 
Better beasts never worked than those sixteen horses 
struggling that Friday among the steep hills and depths 
of Mount Sugar-Loaf Old Tom distinguished himself as 
a master in his craft. His son and his nephew, too, were 
almost his equals. But forebodings gradually, yet inevit- 
ably, gathered about Sam, the one who had been unfortun- 
ate all along the journeyings. Sam did not know how to 
urge, or to spare his horses aright ; nor could he make them 
feel his sympathy, or his mastery. Soon after nightfall, it 
was, that the disaster threatening, and dreaded all day, 
came. No halt was intended before midnight. If pos- 
sible, Frederick City must be reached by day-break. The 
road to Hyattstown unfortunately had been missed, but 
the sergeant had been told that if he kept on as he was 



1S62 



IN THE 



MARYLAND CAMPAIGN 



593 



going, he could get to the direct road for Frederick near 
Urbana. At that time he was approaching a long, steep 
hill, up which a narrow way led through a dense forest. 
Tom, Joe and Jim, with much skill, cheered their fagged 
horses to attempt the difficult drag. At last they succeeded 
in passing over the hill's crest. But not so was it with 
Sam. During the climb no one could give attention to 
any other of the workers. The sergeant was ahead, grop- 
ing in the gloom for rocks and logs ; passing back word to 
Tom of what to do. For some time he had heard Sam's 
w 7 ild yells and the lashings of his w T hip ; and again and 
again he had shouted back commands to the man to stop. 
But in vain. The other drivers w r ere making slow head- 
way ; and, at length, they passed safely over the bend of 
the hill's ridge. Then the sergeant rushed down 
the road to the luckless rear team. He found Sam's 
horses hopelessly stalled. One of the great leaders, almost 
in a state of collapse, stood streaming with perspiration, 
breathing painfully and trembling as if about to fall. 

" Indeed, Marse Sergeant," whimpered the unlucky Sam, 
as Sergeant Mack ran to him, " dey can't do it, no how." 

" Chuck the wheels, you fool!" yelled the sergeant, him- 
self dragging the branch of a fallen tree under a wheel. 

Close after him came old Tom, on the run — 

" You fool nigger, what you been a doin? " he screamed, 
seizing the straining wheel horses and swinging them 
across the road. 

A most wretched disaster it seemed to be! To the 
sergeant, grown desperate, it could hardly have appeared 
worse. Yet he was far from despair. The wheels of the 
wagon were soon blocked Then, Tom's leaders were 
brought ; and with their help, under the lurid light of ex- 
temporized torches, the crippled team was again started, 
and the wagon slowly drawn over the hill's crest. Not 
far beyond that, by a small mountain stream at the 
road side, the wagons were camped for the remainder 
of the night. 

The next few hours were more than dreary for the sleep- 
less boy who had been charged with this vitally important 
service. The big load on his young shoulders had^become 



594 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 



almost too heavy for him to bear. For three days and 
nights he had ridden much in Tom's jolting wagon ; he 
had walked many miles too ; and at times he had been 
astride one of the driver's horses. Moreover, all the way 
he had had but little sleep, and but insufficient and poor 
food. Now, with this break-down on a remote mountain 
road, where his all-momentous trust was in danger of 
failure, and himself of making a record of incompetence, 
his experiences began to be intolerable. At last he decid- 
ed that, if at day-break the outlook were no better, he 
would destroy enough of the ammunition to let him move; 
and he would drag his way to the front with what rem- 
nant he might be able to save. But at dawn, the un- 
fortunate big bay leader appeared much rested. Sergeant 
Mack took heart again and made ready to move on. 

It was a sorry spectacle— those wagons on their 
way down that lone mountain road that Saturday morn- 
ing. Old Tom had taken charge of Sam's horses, and was 
leading the train. 

About an hour later, it so happened that the extremity 
into which the expedition had fallen became good fortune's 
opportunity. The horses were moving very slowly ; the 
crippled bay was doing little more than a walk in loose, 
sagging harness. The sergeant was seriously deliberating 
over taking his one desperate chance for safety. 

Just then, there came in sight a two-horse-drawn wagon, 
approaching rapidly from the west. The wagon was 
brought to a stop in front of Tom's team which about 
filled the narrow roadway. The wagon's driver was 
evidently a sutler. He and the sergeant, of course, passed 
greetings for the day. No sooner were they passed, how- 
ever, than came the flashing of an inspiring thought into 
the sergeant's troubled brain. 

" So ! here,' 1 it sang, " is your good angel. Here, your 
deliverance has come." Action immediately followed the 
inspiration — 

" See here," began Sergeant Mack, " I want you to help 
me. One of my teams has broken down." 

" Sorry ! but can't do it," replied the sutler, " I'm in a 
hurry." 



1862 



IN THE MARYLAND CAMPAIGN 



595 



"How far is it to the Frederick pike ? " returned the 
sergeant. 

" About eight miles." 

" Well, I want you to carry some of this ammunition to 
the pike." 

" Can't do it," answered the sutler. 

" Oh yes ! you can," continued the sergeant. 

"No!" 

"Oh! yes! Now," persisted Sergeant Mack, "you might 
as well do as I want you to." 

The sutler shook his head obstinately. But the sergeant 
went on, voicing his necessity, — 

" You see, I've got to get this ammunition to the front. 
Now, load up ten of these boxes, and go with us to the 
pike. I will give you ten dollars, if you do. If you won't, 
then, well—you'll have to go any way ; and you'll get 
nothing." 

Five against one left no place for argument. It was an 
arbitrary hold up. It looked very like high-way robbery. 
Yet Sergeant Mack acted without compunction, and would 
have done even worse if need had been. 

Presto, then ! Scores of precious bundles, boxes, cans, 
and bags were unloaded from the sutler's wagon ; piled up 
in the thick undergrowth at the road side ; and ten thousand 
rounds of ammunition from the disabled wagon were put 
into their place. 

Jubilate ! Safety had come. And as the re-enforced 
train made another start the elated sergeant was ready to 
sing,—" Bress de Lord ! I'm out ob de wilderness." 

About three hours later, the much imperilled expedition 
was free from the wretched labyrinth of the mountain 
roads, among which for twenty-four hours it had been 
wandering, Near New Market, on the hard, smooth 
national high-way ; at last among friendly and intelligent 
guides, the hour struck for Sergeant Mack's success. 

Seldom does one have more triumphant pleasure than 
that which swept through the feelings of the leader of this 
hard-faring emergency train when its young "commander" 
heard his wagon's wheels grind on the solid limestone bed of 
the Baltimore turn-pike. There, he soon learned that, only 



596 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 



the day before, the Ninth Corps had passed forward ; it 
was then, probably only a few miles ahead, just beyond 
Frederick City. 

The sutler was soon paid his hire and freed from duress. 
Old Tom had to pay out the money, as Sergeant Mack 
had gone on his expedition without so much as a cent in 
his pockets. Whether or not the sutler, on his return to 
the forest slope of Mount . Sugar- Loaf, found the precious 
goods that had been put in hiding in the undergrowth 
there, deponent does not know. 

The smooth high-way brought a mighty access of 
strength to the rescued train. Its progress was very slow 
and its halts were many, yet, movement was possible. 

But soon it was clear that no time was to be lost. A 
battle would surely take place within the next few days. 
All rumors agreed in that belief. 

Late that Saturday night, the sergeant brought his 
wagons to a halt beside the Monocacy River, on the east 
border of Frederick City. There the horses- and men were 
fed, and there they slept until towards the dawn of that 
fateful Sunday, September 14th. Very early that morn- 
ing the jaded beasts, urged to fresh exertions, dragged 
their great loads through Frederick City, and out over 
the road towards South Mountain. Already, there, the 
advances of the forces of McClellan and Lee had begun 
their historic struggle. 

It was just after ten o'clock that morning when Sergeant 
Mack's eventful expedition came to an end. It entered 
the camp of Gen. Sturgis's Division. The sergeant ordered 
a halt : he reported at Headquarters his return with all 
requisitions filled and ready for delivery. 

As it happened, he had achieved, in spite of the many 
obstacles and perils he had met, a signal success. He had 
brought to the advancing army its first reserve ammuni- 
tion. Indeed, he was almost a day ahead of the coming of 
the General Headquarters Ordnance Train. And, to crown 
all, he then received from the Corps Commander, Gen. Reno, 
his personal thanks, given just before the general left camp 
for that day's mountain-side battle where, towards evening, 
he was killed in action. 



1862 SOUTH MOUNTAIN AND ANTIETAM 597 

In after years, Sergeant Mack has often looked back 
and marvelled over the hardships of those four days 
and nights, when, as a mere boy, he was burdened with 
a load much to big for him. He was directly re- 
sponsible to no authority beyond his own for every move 
he made as he wandered, in large part blindly, in an 
unknown land, in search of the Army Corps that, with 
two days start, was moving away from him in devious 
paths. He has ever been profoundly grateful for the 
fortunate ending of his venture; regretting only, and often 
with some self-accusation, the practical ruin of those 
sixteen of the noblest animals that were ever sacrificed in the 
cause of human welfare. Those sixteen horses actually 
seemed to accept the cruel service demanded of them. 
They labored those five nights and four days, never once 
unwilling, or resistant ; with insufficient food and rest ; drag- 
ging over roads, in places about impassable, burdens that 
were almost doubly large for their ordinary work. They 
literally gave their lives that the defenders of the Union 
might not meet their enemy without the reserve ammuni- 
tion for their weapons that would be necessary to carry 
the struggle through. I offer here this tribute to those 
dumb beasts. 

With this tribute, the story of the load laid upon young 
Sergeant Mack, in the Maryland Campaign of 1862, 
may end. 

V. 

Soldier Letters Continued, 

The letter from " near Sharpsburg, Sept. 18th " which I 
interrupted to give place to the story just told, continues,— 

"That day we had the hard battle of Middletown 
Heights, " (South Mountain)." What a terrible time! Our 
forces drove the rebels from hill to hill over the high 
mountain. What numbers of rebel dead were piled along 
the road as we came over the road the next day. Piles 
two and three deep, and with all kinds of wounds. I 
saw over forty of oux men buried in one trench. 



£98 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL "WAR PART IV 



Well, we came over ; pursued the rebels, and have 
caught them here near the Antietam Creek. They are 
between the Antietam and the Potomac and can not get out, 
I think. 

Oh ! what a hard battle yesterday. I could see it all 
in the morning, plainly, — men killed by shot and shell. It 
was horrible.' * — " Our Division took the bridge over the 
Antietam Creek on the left." 

" Do come and see me here. I am so near'home and can 
not get there." 

After the battle of Antietam our army lay in camp for 
several weeks in Pleasant Valley, Maryland, not far from 
Harper's Ferry. The letters I wrote at that time, before 
the one dated October 21st, are missing from my collection. 

I was quite ill for a while during that period. I received 
the care of that finely endowed volunteer nurse, of much 
fame in after years, Miss Helen Gilson. 

In May, 1868, 1 published a tribute to Miss Gilson, " In 
Memoriam." I repeat it here not only as giving another 
phase of my soldier experience, but as cherishing further a 
treasured remembrance of that rare woman. 

MRS. HELEN GILSON OSGOOD. 

" Sweet Miss Gilson " was the name by which she was 
known in the army. How well I remember her. We 
first met in Pleasant Valley, Md., October, 1862, soon after 
the battle of Antietam. She was then giving the wealth 
of her mind and heart to the sick and wounded soldiers, in 
an old, cheerless log barn we tried to call a hospital. 

What a beautiful minister of goodness she w T as. There, 
on that hard threshing-floor she could be seen constantly ; 
often sitting beside the sick, speaking those words of com- 
fort, smiling those sisterly smiles, reading those " words of 
life," singing those songs of home, country and heaven, 
which gave to her the name " Sweet Miss Gilson." We 
all loved her. I am sure she made home dearer, life purer 



1862 



AGAIN A MOVE INTO VIRGINIA 



599 



and heaven nearer to every one of us. When, as it 
happened so often, some spirit was about to be released 
from his bonds, she always took a place beside the dying 
one and received the farewell message. Then, with her 
pale, uplifted face, always beautiful, but never so beautiful 
as when it lay back looking into the world to which she 
has herself now gone, she bore the departing soul by the 
power of faith to its rest. They were no false tears she 
shed. They were no false words she spoke. Never seemed 
touch more gentle than hers. Never seemed steps so light. 
It was brightness at her coming and sadness at her going. 

She was brave as she was loving. I have seen her sit 
unmoved and silent in the midst of a severe cannonade 
while soldiers were fleeing for refuge. I have seen her 
almost alone in a contraband camp and hospital. In the 
midst of ignorance, ill-suited to her, vice that must have 
been repugnant, and squalor in all its repulsiveness, she 
moved, an angel of mercy, loving and loved. She gave in 
all her ministrations health to the diseased, comfort, in- 
spiration to the dying, strength to the timid, knowledge 
to the ignorant, and to the depraved the beauty of purity. 
She had a rare power over the soldier's heart. It acknow- 
ledged her S\vay always. With us, her life w T as hidden from 
the world — it lay a constant sacrifice before every needy 
patriot " friend." Eich were we who received its blessings. 
. Permit me, though a stranger to Mrs. Osgood's friends, 
to send them these affectionate remembrances of Miss 
Gilson. To me, her earthly life seemed to be but a type of 
the heavenly." 

The letter of October 2 1st, to which I have just refer- 
red, was written evidently under a stress of feeling not 
infrequent during that year, caused chiefly by the natural 
solicitude expressed in the letters that came from my 
home. I was, certainly, devoted without reservation to 
the cause for which I had volunteered as a soldier ; and 
moreover, I was for the most part upborne by a w T ave of 
strong religious emotion. I wrote,— 



600 



MEMOEIALS OF THE CIVIL WAK PART IV 



" I expect we will move from here in a couple of days 
into Virginia. We will there, perhaps, again meet the 
army of this horrid rebellion. Know that I am going to 
do my duty, at the sacrifice of every tie that binds me to 
earth. The love of my parents, nor the terror of battle 
shall keep me from it. And you must be content. 

God rules everywhere, and I shall * not be afraid of the 
arrow that flieth by day, nor of the destruction that wasteth 
at noonday.' - - - It would make me feel a thousand 
times better if you would encourage me to fight manfully for 
my perishing country ; it would nerve me to do noble duty. 

Give me into the hands of our Master, and be proud that 
you have done so. No longer grieve. If fall I must, what 
is that ? The cause is a just and glorious one. I do not 
reproach you. Far from it. But it would make me feel 
prouder of you, if you would forget self in the endeavor to 
save the land that has protected and cherished us. Do 
you not really think that the extreme peril in which our 
beloved land is now placed demands every sacrifice ? Do 
not but think kindly of what I have said ; and commend 
yourselves and me to God's care." 

I do not remember just what induced this protesting 
outburst, but it must have been feeling caused by my mother's 
constant dread. I did not realize how frail she was 
physically ; also, in my impetuous boyhood, I either did 
not value the mother love at its real depth, or I put on a 
certain bravado because I feared that her affection might 
weaken me. The latter alternative, as several other letters 
indicate, was probably the fact. 

Shortly after this October letter was written, our army 
was advancing cautiously beyond the Potomac, making 
another " On toEichmond " move. By this time I had a 
larger train. I was in charge of thirty-six wagons, carrying 
ammunition supplies for about ten thousand men. The 
weather was indescribably beautiful at the beginning of 



1802 ATTACK OX OUR AMMUNITION TRAIN" 



001 



the march. For a while, it was for me more like a pleasure 
tour than a journey fraught with the worst kinds of pos- 
sible disaster. My sleeping place, when preparation for 
camp was not convenient, was in one of the wagons, on 
straw T spread over a load of boxed musket cartridges. The 
mules of each w r agon were, at night, usually hitched around 
the wagons, at the wheels. A letter written at the time 
has in it this note. 

" A mule pulled my vest out of the wagon the other- 
night and, before I discovered it, ate it half up. Con- 
sequently I have none. A warm vest, buttoned up to the 
neck, would make me more comfortable these cold nights. 

I have a tent of my own, now ; altogether quite a com- 
fortable place, — a little cold, however, o'nights." 



Shortly afterwards came a weather change. 

" We marched in a driving snow storm," I wrote, 
" and a hard trip we had of it. Since then w r e have 
been on the go all the time ; fighting once at Amissville. 
We have moved at times nearly the w r hole night long. 
Everything has been so confused that I am scarcely 
conscious of the lapse of time. From day to day, and night 
to night the hours are but as moments. Yet the time, 
since I enlisted, seems almost as long as a year ; not be- 
cause it has been wearisome but because so many events 
are crowded into a short space of time to a mind that has 
heretofore been unaccustomed to many changes." 

A letter, written November 18th, tells of w T hat I still 

remember as a most startling surprise coming one lovely, 

quiet morning. Our train had left a delightful camp in a pine 

grove at White Sulphur Springs, for the day's march.— 

" As we arrived at the foot of a long hill," I wrote " a 
cavalry company which had been on picket came galloping 
in and past us over the hill. The captain rode up to me, 
shouting,— 



602 MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 

' Where is your artillery ? You will be shelled in less 
than twenty minutes ' 

'I can't help it/ I answered. 'The batteries have 
moved forward with the troops, and we are unprotected." 

Then off he galloped. As he did so, I saw horsemen 
and a battery of four guns appear on a hill about five 
hundred yards away. I commenced to tremble, for I 
knew that in a moment their shells would be bursting 
around us. Who would be the first hit. That was a 
fearful moment. 

Then, a white puff ; an instant of terror ; then are ex- 
plosion, two or three hundred feet short. Another shot. 
That one went singing over my head and far to the front. 
Another and another, — and then they opened terribly. 
Their object was, evidently, to destroy the poor ammuni- 
tion train which was endeavoring excitedly to make its 
escape. 

After about fifteen minutes Durell's Battery came up and 
opened on the rebels. It did tolerable execution, but did not 
divert the " reb " fire from us. We got it almost all ; and 
I stood in the midst of it, and saw the teams get safely by. 

We lost two wagons, and had two teamsters wounded. 
One ball went through the back of one of the wagons, — 
out at the side ; — broke three spokes from a wheel, and 
wounded a mule, the driver and another man. 

Lieut. Mcllvaine of Reading, was killed not more than 
a hundred feet from me. His body was half cut off by a 
solid shot, and his left arm blown off. Another battery- 
man had his right arm shot off ; and another man was 
wounded slightly. 

I was not touched . A power higher than human pro- 
tected me. 

Wonderful to tell ; I was very cool after the first shot or 
two were fired. And though they whizzed and shrieked 
and exploded all around me, yet I felt just as secure as I 
ever did. For, really, I was then in no more danger 
than I am now. My life is in God's hands, and I am 
willing to let it rest there. 

Oh! how crazy the colored teamsters got. I had to 
laugh even on that terrible field." 



1862 ACTION AT WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS 603 



The letter contains a diagram which I drew of the field 
on which this little action took place ; an action as real for 
the scope it had as that of a great battle, and as momen- 
tous for the few persons who were engaged in it. The 
path which I passed over from the rear to the middle of 
the train, drawn as across the base of a triangle, was one 
on which I had to be openly exposed to the center of the 
firing of the Confederate battery. That center lay, at a dis- 
tance of about four hundred yards, across the bare crest of 
a hill. Midway, on my ride, a shell, bursting not more than 
fifty feet at the front, practically palzied my horse. He stood, 
rigid but trembling violently for almost a minute, when 
another shell, exploding close behind us, fortunately shocked 

him into a run which carried me to the middle wagons. 
***** 

" You may rest assured " continued my letter " that the 
thing was very exciting ; but I felt a little proud, even on 
the field, that I could look at it rather coolly and 
calmly. The excitement, strange to say, was rather ex- 
hilarating than otherwise, and I liked it as long as I was 
in it. As soon as I was out of it I felt lonely. But, since 
it is past, I would rather no similar scene should return, 

— at least for some time." 

***** 

" We are on the right of Burnside's grand concentrated 
army. 

We like out new commander, but he marches very 
fast and far. His soul is in the work, and you can look 
for great things soon." 

On the back of the letter is pencilled,— "Mailed Nov. 
26th, in front of Fredericksburg. A battle is imminent ! " 

This action at White Sulphur Springs was in fact more 
serious than even the report I made of it would indicate ; 
but I will say again, in explanation of almost all these 
letters, that my chief anxiety during this soldier period 



^604 MEMOEIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PAET IV 

was concerning my mother's welfare. I was only a boy ; 
and as an impulsive boy, naturally, I was not sufficiently 
tactful or prudent in what I wrote, notwithstanding my 
solicitude. Still, I was always more or less conscious of the 
fact that my mother suffered from myriad imaginings about 
me ; indeed, that she was abnormally impelled to think of 
the worst of the happenings possible among any unfavor- 
able circumstances. 

A rather serious accident befell me soon after our arrival 
in front of Fredericksburg ; but I wrote to my parents, — 

" I have just been very much amused at the letter 
written to you by Captain Eawolle stating that I had 
been severely hurt by a fall from my horse. I am afraid 
that it may frighten mother very much, and so I drop 
you this hasty line. 

On Friday last, I was riding quite fast in order to 
warm up my horse, when he slipped and fell. I rolled 
off very ludicrously onto the ground ; was muddied con- 
siderably, and I had my ankle pretty well sprained. An 
ambulance was sent for me, and I was carried to the 
Ambulance Corps, where I was excellently treated. 

Don't fear for me ; I will be as lively as ever before 
the week is gone " 

I did not falsify in these statements, but I did not make 
known the real danger, or the inconvenience of the injury. 
My knee never fully recovered from the effects of the tumble. 

Another letter not untruthful, but suppressing the truth 
in a measure, was written, "Dec. 6th, 1862," "In front 
of Fredericksburg, Virginia." 

" Though the storm beats and dashes around me, I care 
not for its fury, for I am now just as snugly ensconced in 
my little " A " tent as I could be in a carpeted room at 
home. I write on a very nice table taken from the ruins 



1862 



IN FRONT OF FREDERICKSBURG 



605 



at White Sulphur Springs. I sit on an excellent camp 
stool found on the road. Under my feet is nice hay. 
Beside me is my bed with three blankets on six solid 
inches of hay. My clothes, just washed, but not yet dry, 
lie in a corner, neatly piled up ; my valise, well filled, lies 
open just on my left ; and, altogether, I am as well fixed 
as almost any infantry officer you could find. 

I have plenty of comforts, because I have just eaten a 
hearty fill of splendid bean soup. To crown all, I have a 
full suit of rubber, with which to cover myself should I 
feel inclined to venture forth in this storm of sleet and 
rain. How greatly have I been blest !" 

$z 

" Truly, fou?' months have to-day passed away since 
my enlistment, and I still live on earth. God is good. 
And though we rejoice that I am still with you, yet, 
should God have seen fit to bring about ' my rest with the 
immortal throng,' this ought, also, to have been a cause 
for rejoicing instead of mourning. Let Him rule. He will 
do all things well." 

¥fc H» *J» *$» «is 

" There is no promise, yet, of a battle ; but let it come 
speedily if it will benefit our miserable country. * * * 

My ankle is now almost well, and I can travel about my 
duties as briskly as there is any need." 

This letter was written only five days before the disas- 
trous assault upon Fredericksburg was begun. We all 
understood that the attack w T ould soon take place, and this 
fact shaped much that was written in the letter just copied. 

There was no conscious " pietistic cant " in any of my 
letters, when I spoke about death, or about my religious 
assurance. I am confident that I felt concerning these 
things, then, just as I wrote of them. 

Curiously, I have no letters now in which any refer- 
ence is made to the extraordinary repulse which followed 
the assault that our army made, beginning Dec. 10th, 1862, 



606 MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 

on the Confederate forces at Fredericksburg. From Falmouth 
Heights I witnessed the whole of the action during the first two 
days. The bombardment on the 11th was terribly sublime. 

On Dec. 13th, and 14th, I was at the front of our line 
with my Division, delivering much needed ammunition. 

On the 12th, I was for some hours among the ruins of the 
town, waiting with wagons loaded with cannon cartridges 
and shells. These wagons were several times greatly en- 
dangered by the enemy's fire:- — one shell exploding directly 
above the cover of one of the wagons, very close to me as I 
sat on my horse alongside. I was compelled, once, to 
threaten, with my revolver, one of the drivers of these 
exposed wagons while we were on the way to our appointed 
position. 

I much regret that I have nothing that was written at 
the time, which I can quote, descriptive of those awful, 
and yet magnificent, days of battle. 

But I remember one happening, clearly, which I wish to 
put on record here. In the very darkest hours after the 
decisive repulse from Marye's Heights ; when some of us 
were struggling up the steep road on the north bank of the 
Eappahannock river, at about two o'clock in the morning 
of the fourth day ; I saw an officer riding from group to 
group of those who were bearing wounded men. And I 
heard him earnestly ordering the bearers to take especial 
care of their burdens. 

That officer was Gen. Burnside, solicitous for the 
comfort of his men even in the hour of his crashing 
defeat. I saw our army's Commander distinctly, by the 
light of a fire burning at the road side. 

My next letter was written on New Year's Day. If 



1863 " HAPPY NEW YEAR 99 IN WINTER QUARTERS 607 



one were to judge of our situation at Fredericksburg, 
from the letter I wrote in so short a time as on that fort- 
night date after the awful assault upon Marye's Heights, 
one would never even guess at the disastrous facts which 
had just occurred. I wrote, — 

A "Happy, very Happy New Year" to you. The 
corporal of my guard is just now busy boiling bean soup 
for our supper ; and I have retired to my tent ; and 
squatted down on my bed ; and have taken up my pencil 
to send you my New Year greetings. 

"We are having our usual lazy routine of duties to go 
through, and hardly recognize the day as the first of a new 
year. We are happy, healthy and fat ; and we enter 
1863 with every bright prospect that army life can afford. 

You, I have no doubt, are happy, and are thinking of 
your boy who has ' gone for a soldier/ You have your 
turkey, and cranberry sauce, and mince pie ; and I have 
my crackers, salt pork and bean soup, with sutler lobster 
and apple snits ; everything prepared as best my cookery 
can. With this I am happy. 

Happy and contented ! What better lot could befall 
me ? With these blessings I step over the threshold of the 
New Year. 

And if I be spared to greet the coming of another year, 
may I be permitted to greet it with you at Home. Oh ! 
' Home, sweet Home ' ! only those who are deprived of its 
blessings can appreciate it. — Though I enjoy almost more 
than any other private soldier the pleasures (if there be 
any) of the soldier life, yet there is 1 an aching void,' the 
army ' never can fill.' - - - " There are promises of 
a move." 



A month later appears the next letter. It reads :— 

" Imagine yourselves, my dear parents for once ' in the 
spirit,' and visit me in my little wedge tent at the " Ammuni- 
tion Train of the 2nd Div. 9th A. C.," about 8 a.m. on this 
31st day of January, 1863. See me snugly ensconced in my 
little bed under a goodly pile of warm blankets, busily 
pondering upon the important subject of how I shall ' kill 



/ 

/ 



608 MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 

Time ' for the next twelve hours, or, at least, till I again 
grow sleepy. This I am doing because my superior of- 
ficer is absent, 6 on business' of course, in Washington, and 
I am acting on the good old maxim, ' When the Cat is 
away the naughty mice will play.' Shall I go to the 
banks of the Eappahannock and visit the tottering old 
town of Falmouth, or shall I go to see my comrades of 
the 126th ? As I have not seen the boys for some time, I 
am not long in deciding. * Hurrah ! ' for a trip to the 126th. 

No sooner said than done. Quickly the blankets are 
thrown off, and I am on my feet with my head near the 
tent roof, industriously engaged in making my toilet. 

Don't be frightened at the thought of my bounding into 
your presence en dishabille. A soldier when retiring for 
the night has only to doff his hat, blouse and boots, and 
then is ready. 1 am soon prepared for the outer world ; 
and into it I go, sniffing the bracing air of winter which 
stirs my sluggish blood into a quick current, making me 
truly feel as a ' Lord of Creation !' Ah ! vain conceit ! 

But to return to the subject. You notice me prepare my 
breakfast which, by the way, is not composed of army 
rations. It is procured by dint of 'greenbacks' from the 
sutler. It is liver, ponhass, fresh bread, butter, blackberries 
and coffee, with sugar and condensed milk. Quite a meal ! 

I am now ready for a start. My horse is saddled ; the 
sun is shining brightly overhead ; and the ground is 
beautifully muddy underneath. Keep close to me and 
watch my inmost thoughts so that you can appreciate the 
scenes through which we will pass." 

i^I ¥fc ^ 9jt 

The letter, however, was closed with this start for a 
visit to the home regiment. What became of me for the 
rest of the day, I have now no means of knowing. 

Before the next letter which I have was written, a very 
important change of official station for me took place. 

Under date, "February 23rd, 1863/' not at the " Ninth 
Corps Ammunition Train," but at " Head Quarters, Co D., 
126th P.V." I wrote to my parents ; — 



1863 PROMOTION TO A LIEUTENANCY 609 



" To-day I received your letter addressed to me as 
" Lieutenant/' and a few moments afterward I received 
my lieutenant's commission. 

I will try to bear my maiden honor with becoming 
modesty. I have no doubt it will cause some dis- 
satisfaction among the men who have so long and 
faithfully served in the company ; but I trust my 
conduct will fully remove any objections they may 
have towards me. God make me a true Christian, and 
soldier of Jesus, as well as a patriot and soldier of the 
United States. 

I am glad to hear that mother is hugely glad of my 
promotion. I am glad that her mind is once made easy, — 
for I will have many comforts now I never have had before. 

Forgiving my faults, remember me as your affectionate 
son, — ever." 

A week later, March 1st, I answered some questions 
sent from home 

" As to how the promotion was received in the com- 
pany, I would say that though at first my appointment 
caused some heartburnings among a few it never incon- 
venienced me in the least ; and, I think that now I have 
won the hearts of nearly all the men under me. I shall 
always treat them with that kindness and respect which 
they deserve ; and, by doing my duty in danger and out 
of it, compel their respect. I want to bear an unblemish- 
ed Christian character before them, and thereby do good 
to their souls."- - - - 

" I am well, except for a little soreness about the throat. 
Last Wednesday our pickets were driven in by Stuart's 
cavalry. We were called to arms and were marched out 
quickly, with no blankets to protect us at night. Off we 
went through slush and mud about six miles, and there we 
were thrown outside the picket line in order of battle. We 
were commanded to make no fires whatever. 

There we were all night. Being an officer I had the 
privilege of going to the rear at times, to the Grand .Re- 
serve, where I enjoyed their fires, while the poor boys were 
out all night in the rain and snow. 



610 



MEMOKIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR 



PART IV 



Next morning we went to the rear and built fires. 
We were relieved at noon of the next day, and marched 
back to camp in about eight inches of slush and mud. 

Yesterday I had forty men building a corduroy road and 
bridges through a swamp.- - - - 

Two more months, and then for home, if God preserves 
my life. Oar union will be a blessed, happy one. If 
not, then rest content. 

I wish that papa would come to see us. He can have 
comfortable quarters and good meals. Our dinner to-day 
was fried chicken, quince-butter, apple-butter, butter, soft 
white bread, and coffee. Our breakfast was fresh herring, 
etc. 

Come and refill our mess-chest with good things and 
enjoy them with us. We may move if it clears off, and 
so you had better come soon." 



One the 30th of March I wrote,— 

" I received your last letter when on picket enclosing one 
from General Sturgis. I need not assure you that I have 
been greatly relieved to know that I am held in so great 
esteem, as I appear to be, by the general. 

Night before last we were on picket, and I was on the 
line of sentinels. It rained at a terrific rate. We had no 
shelter except houses of pine boughs ; and it was better to 
stand outside, than in, them. They were just as a sieve. 
But thanks to your kindness, with my new poncho, I kept 
completely dry all the time, except my feet." 



The following letter gives an account, in my hastily 
written, crude, boyish way of telling the story, of one of 
the most pathetic bits of experience I have ever known. 

" How you ought to thank God for the comforts you 
enjoy at home. You are surrounded by plenty and see 
no want. But these poor souls who live in Virginia, have 
a desolate time indeed. 

The day we arrived on the line of out-post sentinels, a 
young girl, in a house just outside the line, died. 



1863 THE INNOCENT WITH THE GUILTY 611 



The case was a sad one, indeed. The lady of the house 
was a widow, and she has no assistance but from her son 
about fifteen years^old ; and from a young girl, a stranger, 
about seventeen or eighteen. None of the family are permit- 
ted to move away from the house, for they are j.ust on the 
line. No one is permitted to visit them. They can not go 
away to buy anything ; and all they live on is corn meal 
and pork, and what little things are given to them by the 
guards around the house. Her whole family is sick, 
and she has no medical attendance but what little the 
surgeon of the pickets occasionally gives. 

Yesterday morning we buried that girl. A plain pine 
coffin, with a great deal of trouble, had been made. It 
was taken by Lieutenant Fletcher and four of Company 
A ; Captain Walker, Lieutenant Bonsall and myself, and 
two girls ending the procession, followed it. After walk- 
ing a short distance we arrived at the grave dug by Clugston 
and some others. There the coffin was put into the 
ground, and, without a hymn or prayer, the ground was 
shoveled in by hands used to death. It was a sad sight. 
God help those poor Virginians. ,, 

A fortnight later, April 11th, as usual I tried to say 
something comforting, if not cheerful, to my mother. 

" I was never in better health and spirits than I am now. 
My soul is buoyed up with the love of the Redeemer, and I 
feel perfectly unconcerned as to any circumstances which 
may happen to me ; and the only regret I have is that you 
do not share my feelings." 

>}c ^ ^ 

" My boots have run their course. On our last picket 
excursion one of them burst open along the back ; the 
other opened itself along half the length of its toe. 
The new sutler, however, helped me out of my trouble 
on our return to camp." - - - - 

" The roads are now good, and, were Hooker so dis- 
posed, we could move as easily now as ever. He did com- 
mence to move about a week ago, but operations elsewhere 
prevented him. And now, if Charleston falls, — as God 



612 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 



grant it may, — you may look for a speedy move from here. 
A crushing blow then struck by us, will fatally end this 
terrible, infernal Rebellion. Some of us may fall, but who 
it will be I do not know. If I am stricken I am content ; 
and so you must be." 

Events evidently were hastening towards the great con- 
summation which took place in the battle of Chancellors- 
ville three weeks later. 

I wrote, on April 19th, that, " the weather is very 
pleasant and the promise of a move soon is great. A 
number think we will start off in the morning. 

We are sending off all our superfluous baggage ; we 
will march with eight days rations. The wagons will 
not follow for the present. Where we are going we 
do not know ; but this we know, that we will be very 
likely to see some hard service. 

Commit me and yourselves to God's Hands, and trust 
Him for what disposition He may choose to make of us." 

The next letter that I sent home, dated April 26th, 
happens to have been written only the day before we 
broke camp for our disastrous advance southward, to our 
defeat at Chancellorsville, — the battle which was so mo- 
mentous for me. 

This letter, like all others written during that eventful 
winter, was pervaded by much religious sentiment : — it had 
an exceptional amount of religious self-consciousness in it. 
It was, doubtless, especially affected by the certainty that a 
fierce struggle would soon come to pass between our army 
and the one confronting us across the Rappahannock 
River. These facts are necessary, in order to interpret 
aright what I said to those who were dearest to me : — 

" I have received your last two letters, and am gratified 
to learn that God is still keeping you with so many bless- 
ings. But I was considerably taken aback by your need- 



1863 



JCST BEFORE CHANCELLOKSVILLE 



613 



less solicitude for my welfare. Think you that I am still 
of that weak composition in character that I was when I 
entered the army. Oh ! no. Its hardships and trials 
have changed me into far sterner material than you think 
me to be made of. ------ - 

We have not moved ; yet we are momentarily expect- 
ing the order to advance. The move will be likely to take 
place w T ithin the next three days. 

From all I hear, you are making yourselves miserable 
with surmises and reports which finally prove to be false. 
Lieutenant Piatt says he has received a letter in which 
it is stated that mother is mourning much for me. 

Now, is this right ? It does no good, and it only makes 
me feel bad to hear it. Eead the enclosed poem and take 
its true sentiment to yourselves. Yield me to my country 
and my God. We may meet the enemy before we get 
home. But all will be right, no matter what may happen. , 
And ' as thy day is, so shall thy strength be/ - - - - 

I have just returned from a very happy meeting over at 
Stoneman Station, under the charge of that noble organi- 
zation the Christian Commission. I addressed the meet- 
ing on ' Christian Consistency.' There were about three 
hundred soldiers present. 

Last Sabbath evening I spoke to a similarly large 
audience on 6 The Promises of Christ. 5 The Commission's 
influence is spreading rapidly through the army. May 
God bless it. 

I am perfectly well and am enjoying myself hugely. If 
I am spared I will soon have the delight of meeting you at 
home. God grant that we may. Yet not our will, but 
His." 



The story of what happened soon afterwards for me, on 
the march of oar army from Falmouth to the Eappahan- 
nock Eiver ; on the battle-field at Chancellorsville and after- 
wards.; also at my return to the home and parents, — is em- 
bodied in the following monograph, read in two parts to the 
Commanderies, in Minnesota and in Massachusetts, of 



614 



MEMOEIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 



the " Loyal Legion of the United States/' in 188 — , and 
published in full, in 1904, by the " Soldiers and Sailors 
Historical Society of Rhode Island." 

VI. 

THROUGH CHANCELLORSVILLE INTO AND 
OUT OF LIBBY PRISON: HOME AGAIN. 

i. 

From the Battlefield at 
Chancellors ville into 
Libby Prison, 



Note. — Chancellorsville, Virginia, U.S.A., a large brick hotel, once 
v kept by a Mr. Chancellor, was the site of severe sanguinary conflicts 
between the American Federal Army of the Potomac under General 
Hooker, and the Confederates under General Lee. On the 29th April, 
1863, the Federal army crossed the Rappahannock: on 2d May, 
General "Stonewall " Jackson furiously attacked and routed the right 
wing, but was mortally wounded by his own party firing on him by 
mistake. General Stuart took his command, and after a severe conflict 
on 3d and 4th May, with great loss to both parties, the Federals were 
compelled to recross the Rappahannock. The struggle was compared 
to that at Hougement during the battle of Waterloo. Jackson died 
10th May. Hooker's loss was 17,000 (16,845) men, of whom 5,000 
were made prisoners. Lee's loss was about 13,000 (12,764), of whom 
3,000 were prisoners. The result of this battle has always been an 
enigma to military critics. Hooker's array was composed of the best 
of material, was well equipped and full of spirit, and numbered 120,000, 
while Lee's force was 62,000. Hooker succeeded in turning Lee's 
position, and in forcing him out of his fortified camp into the open 
field, where a complete victory for the national forces seemed so easy 
of attainment as to be well-nigh certain. That it was not won, was 
due simply to bad management. — Haydn's Dictionary of Dates, 11th Ed. 
1886. 

In answer to your invitation I offer some personal 
recollections of this historic event, — the battle of Chancel- 
lorsville, — together with a recital of some experiences im- 
mediately following it. Competent critics long ago passed 
judgment upon the battle and laid the responsibility for 
the defeat of the Union army upon those who should bear 
it. I have, consequently, nothing to say of the conflict as 
a whole. My purpose now is simply to recall some 



1S63 MARCHING TOWARDS CHANCEL LORSVILLE 615 

experiences in the battle, eventful for me, which, although 
of no great historical value, were somewhat unique. 
They may, moreover, be of more than merely personal 
interest. 

I have learned that the culmination of the disastrous 
conflct came on the morning of May 3d, between eight 
and ten o'clock. General Doubleday, in his graphic 
history of the engagement, speaks of a part of those critical 
hours in these words: "The struggle increased in vio- 
lence. The rebels were determined to break through the 
lines and our men equally determined not to give way. 
Well might De Trobriand style it 'a mad and desperate 
battle ! ' Again and again Eodes's and Hill's divisions 
renewed the attempt and were temporarily successful, and 
again was the bleeding remnant of their forces flung back 
in disorder." The momentous event for me occurred 
during that temporary success of Generals Eodes and Hill. 

A few words about what happened previous to this 
occurrence may have place here. I was a lieutenant in a 
Pennsylvania regiment ; in General Humphreys' division, 
(Third) of the Fifth Corps. This division had had hard 
marching and arduous work for its share ever since it had 
broken camp, Monday, April 27th. We had made a 
long, rapid detour towards our objective point, by way of 
Kelly's and Ely's fords in the Kappahannock and Eapid- 
an rivers. At Kelly's Ford we were detailed as the rear 
guard of the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps. Our work 
was to take up pontoon bridges from streams swollen by 
heavy rains, and to move at night and by forced marches. 
In a journal kept at the time is this record of April 30th : 
" A terrible march ; my feet are very sore and are 
blistered. Had to cut open my boots." In the history of 
the campaign, it appears that it was not the original 
intention of General Hooker, our commander, to use us 
for fighting. Our term of enlistment would expire in a 
short time. He apparently had decided to make a sort of 
factotum of our division in his preparations for the conflict. 
In doing this duty, Friday became a day for us which I 
shall never forget. Already we had been greatly fatigued 
by our night marchings and hard work. On that day 



616 MEMOEIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 

there came a grand climax. We made a " quick time " 
reconnoissance to Banks's Ford, nearly five miles away, on 
the Confederate right. Beaching that point we were 
suddenly " bout faced " and sent back at a " double 
quick " pace to our starting place. It seemed at times in 
that movement that human endurance could last no 
longer. Upon our return, fierce skirmishing on our center 
at Slocum's Corps, of which we had had some tokens, was 
not at all cheering under the circumstances, At length, 
however, our tribulations seemed to have ceased. 

Before nightfall we were in position on the extreme left , 
on a high bluff, in a beautiful wood ; our own left resting on 
the river bank, covering an important line of communica- 
tion, the United States Ford of the Bappahannock. Then, 
we concluded that the army was finally in position and our 
division assigned to a place wholly free from danger. Nothing 
of the enemy could be seen or heard at our front. We threw 
up entrenchments and began to take time at our ease.. 
We were delightfully comfortable that first of May even- 
ing, tired though we were. We could hear distant skir- 
mishing. We were nearly three miles away from the 
point of Confederate resistance to Hooker's advance, and 
were on impregnable heights. Over our pipes we talked 
of the day's events. There was, item first, our command- 
er s boast in " General Order No. 47," which had been read 
to us that morning, to the effect that we had " completely 
surrounded the rebels," and that they would " either have 
to fly ingloriously or come out from their breastworks 
where destruction was certain," and that " the operations 
of the Fifth, Eleventh and Twelfth corps were a series of 
splendid achievements." This was flattering and reassur- 
ing. Also, we had considerable amusement over some en- 
couraging incidents which befell us in our swift reconnois- 
sance on the river-road to Banks's Ford. We had passed 
through a Confederate camp, apparently hastily deserted 
because of our approach. Tents had been left standing, 
fires burning, clothing, food and utensils scattered about on 
the ground, two caissons broken down and left lying in the 
road, and ammunition upset to become our spoil, by men 
too much in a hurry to gather it up. I am saying only 



AT CHAXCELLOESVILLE 



617 



what we thought. The supposition that our coming had 
set the Southerners to going made us jubilant. In this 
good mood at length we fell into well-earned sleep on the 
soft leaves under great trees, that bright and perfect May- 
Day night. 

Just a word, in passing, about the kind of country in 
which the Chancellorsville fight took place. Very little of 
that region was open space. For the most part it was 
heavily wooded ; the woods densely undergrown, and al- 
most impassable. The two famous " Plank Roads " and 
a turnpike were the only continuous clear stretches through 
the wilderness, excepting two or three quite obscure and 
primitive woodways. Add to these features a few houses 
with small open spaces about them, some low heights, 
several wide marshes and small streams, and you picture 
the topography in general of that district. These peculiar- 
ities made the disposition and movement of troops exceed- 
ingly difficult. And to these characteristics, in large part, 
may be attributed the success of " Stonewall " Jackson's 
decisive descent upon our extreme right, on Saturday 
evening. 

But to continue the personal narrative ; — Friday night 
we passed in almost unbroken sleep, We awoke that 
fateful Saturday well rested, confident that, before the day 
should close, our center and right would break the enemy's 
opposition to Hooker's advance and give a clear road for 
our long desired movement toward the Confederate capital. 
Saturday was quiet on the left. We lay lazily about, do- 
ing nothing. The fighting at the center was continuous 
through most of the day. The sound of the musketry 
firing and cannonading rose and fell like that of a distant 
thunder-storm. At times the sound seemed like the 
booming and dash of a wave-beaten shore, carried to the 
ear on the gusts of a fitful wind. Nothing eventful took 
place for us except the mild excitement aroused at our 
seeing a small battery of our own forces drag into position 
at our left. We ate, slept, smoked our pipes and talked. 

Towards evening an accidental shot by one of our pickets 
rallied us " to arms,''* but we soon broke ranks. We did 
not know that the great genius of the Southern armies, 



618 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 



" Stonewall " Jackson, was just then executing one of his 
boldest and most masterly movements, — the movement so 
fraught with doom to Hooker's army. He had taken 
26,000 men, cut himself free from General Lee, and, by an 
obscure road, was speeding towards the listless and un- 
guarded Eleventh Corps, on our farthest right. We heard a 
violent outburst of battle towards sun-down, but we did not 
know then that Jackson's forces, like a mighty torrent had 
swept down on the right, which, almost like sand, had been 
trailed out into the wilderness and left there without barrier 
outposts, and unprepared for such an onset. This decisive 
event of the battle, it was, that brought about the disaster 
which the next morning befell us of Humphreys' division, 
so comfortable then in our ease and safety on the left. It is 
said, so ill-guarded was the extreme right of our army, that 
Jackson's attack upon it was almost a complete surprise ; 
that the fierce rush of the Southerners came in almost 
simultaneously with the retreat of our pickets. The result 
was that Jackson fairly put the Eleventh Corps to rout 
and left it for the rest of the battle hors de combat. Though 
ignorant of its purport, I heard the crash of the far-off 
conflict. It was midnight before I fell asleep. 

The next morning, Sunday, we were awakened at day- 
break by a heavy, irregular tramping at our rear. Kising 
and looking around, I saw, moving along among the 
trees, a very broken and most demoralized trail of soldiers. 
Instantly I felt what it meant. Our time had come. We 
must go into action. We soon learned that this was the 
remnant of the Eleventh Corps ; and that it had been sent 
to occupy our safe place. Our division was at once all in 
bustle and preparation. Coffee and " hard-tack " were soon 
swallowed. With the risen sun our regiments were speed- 
ing at a " double-quick " pace towards the right, where 
desperate fighting had already been renewed. In a short 
time we were under cannon-fire. Near Chancellorsville 
hotel we were halted. The three miles run had been a 
severe beginning for the day. We remained where we had 
been halted under fire, for nearly an hour. Then, in 
column, we moved on past the famous house, past the 
forty guns which had been massed in the open space be- 



1863 



HUMPHREYS* DIVISION IN ACTION 



619 



yond the house, and towards the woods where, at the 
right, a sharp, crashing whirr of musketry rose above all 
the other dreadful sounds which tilled the air. The hor- 
rors of battle began to appear. In our path were many 
who had met with wounds and death in the regiments 
which had preceded us. We made a short halt where 
these dead and wounded were lying. This was a most 
trying ordeal. Had the stop continued long it might have 
been demoralizing. With nothing to do ; with mutila- 
tion and death visible at our feet ; and with peril to our- 
selves increasing, large drafts were made upon moral re- 
sources. 

Fortunately the halt was but for a few moments. Then , 
by the right flank we advanced in line of battle. What 
an advance ! Leaving the open field we entered the 
wilderness. Our progress was for the most part a mere 
scramble ; over logs, through dense underbrush, briers, and 
in swamp-mud. We were scratched and bruised, and our 
clothing was torn. But we pushed on for about a hun- 
dred yards into the thicket. In somewhat thinner woods 
we were halted, and, when in line, lay down and began to 
load and fire at will. It was an udv give and take. We 
could not see the enemy, but the whizz and ting of their 
bullets showed that they were not far away. How long 
this aimless firms; continued. I do not know. But, as 
the excitement grew, many of the men rose to their feet, 
fired and remained standing to load and fire. 

A bit of experience just then proves how much support 
numbers may be to each in a common danger. One of my 
men in his haste had shot away his ramrod. He held up the 
musket to show me what he had done. Without thinking 
I started to the rear, where, at a short distance, I knew 
lay a musket. No sooner had I left touching distance of 
my company when an irresistible sense of loneliness and 
dread seized me. P^achstep away made the sensation more 
acute. Somehow, however, I got the ramrod of the dead 
man's musket, and went back to the line on the run. With 
the return to the firing line came assurance and courage. 
I never felt more alone or helpless than in those few 
moments of separation from my comrades. The air seem- 



620 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL "WAR PART IV 



ed full of hissing, shrieking demons ; and I expected that 
each next moment would bring death. 

The fight went on. So continuous and direct was the 
firing that the underbrush at our front was cut down at 
about waist-height. Gradually, one after another of the 
men ceased firing. Ammunition was becoming exhausted. 
We sent for supplies. None were to be had. Something 
had gone wrong. The men began to feel it. 

Then, as the firing slackened I saw a foreboding 
disorder on our right. A feeling of suspense and of 
doubt seemed to thrill along the line. i^bout that 
time I felt a blow on my right side as though I had 
been struck by a heavy hammer. A glancing ball had 
hit me. 

The disorder, changing into tumult, came nearer and 
nearer. At last, it swept in upon the company next 
to mine, and then it struck my company's right. 
Kising in successive ranks from the ground, the men, 
with questioning looks at one another, started, at 
first slowly, and then rapidly, backward. It was not a 
panic. It was a necessary retreat of almost helpless men 
from a coming danger which they felt themselves powerless 
to resist. 

They were good soldiers. They had led in the farthest 
charge made by the Union forces up Marye's Heights 
at Fredericksburg in the preceding December. I have 
read that that charge was characterized by the Con- 
federate general Ransom as "a last desperate and mad- 
dened attack. " But what can men, without ammunition, 
and seeing the line of which they form part steadily 
breaking away from before some oncoming force, do ? 
The flow of a wave backward on a curving beach does 
not more steadily sweep broken on its way than did the 
retreat of our battle-line from right to left that Sunday 
morning. The enemy, discovering that our ammunition 
was exhausted, had " charged" us, striking our extreme 
light, much as one line of the letter V meets the other. . 

What then happened a letter written not long after- 
wards tells in these words : " Soon I found myself alone. 
I saw that I must run or be killed. I started to run, but 



1863 



TAKEN PRISONER "IN THE BATTLE 



621 



after a few steps my sword scabbard tripped me and threw 
me down on my face. Up again, I tried to break through 
the bushes ; I fell again, and was so exhausted that I could 
go no farther. I crawled alongside one of our wounded, and 
in a moment the rebels were on me." I remember well 
that poor fellow, at whose side I was ; his body torn open 
by a shell. Seeing me he had begged for water. I was 
about to give him my canteen, when, looking up, I discover- 
ered the rebels rapidly coming through the brush. 

Those moments are now like the memory of some dreadful 
dream. Instinctively I started to rise. But, as I rose, I 
saw one of the oncoming skirmishers take a sudden interest 
in me. He jerked his musket from charge to direct aim. 
I was his mark. Perhaps some of you understand just 
what it is to look into a loaded gun, its hammer up and the 
trigger under the finger of a man who would just as soon 
pull as not. Under the circumstance, naturally, I remain- 
ed just where I was, half risen. For several seconds I 
looked into the muzzle of that advancing musket. As in 
a mist, I saw many moving men, and heard the 
noise of their rush. But my brain were concentrated 
on that one advancing figure. He came upon me 
swifter than my speech of him now. When within 
a few paces distance, down came his musket to a 
charge, and with the bayonet at my breast the man 

yelled, " You — of a — give me that 

sword." 

While he was speaking the charging line came up 
and passed. Two regiments deep, it was. Afterwards 
I learned that the Sixth and Fifth Alabama regiments 
were at our immediate front. My captor, a big tawny- 
bearded fellow, seeing that I was but a boy, changed his 
manner at once when I gave him my sword. As I did 
not rise he asked me if I was hurt, " I don't know," I 
replied, and added, " Get me out of this as quick as you 
can." I remembered suddenly that just beyond where 
our line had entered the tangle, in the open space, were 
batteries consisting of about forty guns, planted in crescent 
and bearing on the woods. Our men, I thought, would 
fall back to those batteries and rally there. I was sure, 



622 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 



too, that as soon as the rebels should appear at the edge 
of the woods something would happen. I had no desire 
to be killed by the shrapnel, canister, shell or anything 
else shot from our own guns. Consequently, I urged re- 
treat into the enemy 's works as quickly as possible, and in 
a direction I pointed out. My new acquaintance from 
Alabama agreed with me. He put a strong arm under 
my shoulders, and, half carrying me, started for the rear. 

I cannot tell how far we had gone — perhaps it was a 
hundred yards — when the expected something happened. 
It seemed as though a hurricane had all at once burst out 
of a clear sky upon that forest. We had just reached a 
breastwork behind which there was a deep hole. With 
the first crash among the trees, we fell into that. For 
about ten minutes a roaring torrent of iron plunged 
through the air over us. At once we were almost covered 
by fallen tree branches. The noise was horrible. Gradu- 
ally the devastating stream ceased. As it slackened, 
back came the Southern crowd, pell-mell, all in disorder ; 
really " a bleeding remnant/' as General Doubleday wrote 
of it ; and back with the retreating mass we two scrambled 
towards the further rear. Soon, the Confederates halted 
under the commanding shouts of their officers, and I was 
hurried on farther to where at length we met General 
Rodes, to whom I surrendered, and by whom I was sent 
still farther backwards. 

Our way then lay over one of the " Plank Boads," 
so much spoken of in connection with the Chancellors- 
ville fight. On this road the struggle of the day and 
night before had been severest. Our own and the 
Confederate dead by the score lay side by side there. 
Twice, batteries plunged past us, the hoofs of the horses, 
and the caissons' wheels, crushing and mutilating the 
dead bodies of friend and foe. Along the roadside, 
were gathered hundreds of the wounded of both armies, 
their only shelter from the blazing sun being blankets 
stretched over them, held in place by the closed hammers 
of muskets ; the muskets reversed and stuck upright into 
the ground by their bayonets. It was a sickening march. 
Confederate reserves passed us, hurrying to the front at 



1S63 WITH " STONEWALL " JACKSON'S CORPS 623 



" double-quick time ; " supplies of ammunition were being 
carried forward. Farther on, we reached what, I was 
told, had been the first line of the " Yankee " breastworks. 
At that point was a house, filled with, and surrounded by, 
wounded and dying of the hapless Eleventh Corps. Many 
evidences of a fearful struggle were visible there. Leaving 
these we soon entered the original Confederate position. 
I was there delivered over to an officer, and became one 
more in a large crowd of our own men, chiefly of the 
Eleventh Corps, already gathered there. I was freed 
from the morning's horror. I threw myself down upon 
the ground physically exhausted ; a discouraged, miserable 
prisoner of war. 

At this place let me acknowledge that from the Southern 
soldiers who had anything to do with us on the battle- 
field we received nothing but kind treatment. As far as 
I could learn, much had been done for our wounded. A 
number of our own surgeons had been left within the Con- 
federate lines, who, with the Confederate surgeons, were 
giving their services to the injured of both armies. 

After a short rest, I began to observe my new situation 
and surroundings. One of the things most to attract 
attention was the generally miserable appearance of the 
soldiers of Jackson's Corps. Dirt and tatters seemed to be 
universal in their clothing, and a used-up, emaciated look 
in their physique. They were really what one would call 
" a hard-looking crowd. " Nor could one style them 
" wearers of the gray." Dusty brown rather were they 
from their rusty slouched hats, sandy beards, sallow skins, 
butternut coats and trousers down to their mud-stained 
shoes. I thought them emaciated, I said, but perhaps I 
would better say that they were lank and lean. Certainly 
they had shown remarkable endurance, and they were yet 
able to do exhausting and desperate work. I suppose the 
facts were, that already the Confederacy was beginning to 
suffer from poverty in its commissariat, and that, ac- 
customed to the round, well-fed look of the soldiers of the 
North, I could not judge correctly of men who had become 
chiefly sinew and bone by doing such work as " Stone- 
wall " Jackson exacted of them. Nevertheless, as we scon 



624 MEMORIALS OF THIS CIVIL WAR PART IV 

found out, the Confederate commissariat was neither well 
filled nor luxurious. One of our guards gave me a small 
piece of his " hard-tack " for luncheon, and said that they 
were all on short rations. "We officers, as it proved, were 
unfortunate in having put our haversacks on pack-mules 
that morning before going into action. Consequent- 
ly, we had become, in every sense of the word de- 
pendents on our captors' bounty. How generous that 
was, the record of the next few days will show. 

Towards noon the prisoners were formed into a sort of 
column, — the members of the numerous Northern regiments 
ranging side by side as chance ordered, — and were started off 
southward on a road towards Spottsylvania Court House. 
We were guarded by a South Carolina regiment. By the 
way we marched, it was about fifteen miles to the Court 
House, which, at nightfall we reached. We were driven 
into the Court House enclosure, where we spent the night 
on the grass under the shelter of overspreading trees. As 
I lay there, looking up at the quiet stars and sky, I re- 
alized for the first time what the events of the day meant. 
I was a prisoner, and doomed to — I could not tell what. 
I dreaded the revelations of the future, but worse 
that all else I suffered from the thought of the sus- 
pense of the father and mother at home, who would 
not know what had become of the boy they had expect- 
ed so soon to see. At length I fell into sleep with a 
miserable depression of brain and heart. 

Early the next morning we were on the road. No food 
had we had with which to start the day. Already some 
of us had begun to feel the effects of our unusual fast. 
That Monday's march was silent and dreary. We saw 
but few people, and passed but few houses. No signs of 
war appeared. Our column must have seemed more like 
a doleful band of condemned criminals than a body of 
honorably defeated soldiers. Most of us were in a sorry 
condition from bruises and wounds received in that scram- 
ble in the wilderness. The clothing of some was so torn 
that arms, legs and even backs and chests were laid bare. 

Only these incidents of that day are left in memory. 
Daring one of our halts, near a good-looking house, a 



1863 to guinea's station : stannaed's maesh 625 

woman gave to the major commanding our guard a small 
Confederate flag, which, to please her, he flaunted over us 
as he rode by, with the declaration that now we should 
" have to march under that." This was the first real insult 
offered us, At another place, a little woman came run- 
ning down a path from her house to the roadside, fairly 
w T ild with revengeful rage. She raised her little fists and 
shook them at us, her black eyes sparkling. With a sort 
of scream she cried out, " Kill 'em all, colonel, right here 
for me ! " Negroes at times came out from their cabins to 
look, but never a word said they. This gloomy march 
lasted for about thirteen miles, when, late in the afternoon, 
we crossed the Ny River, neared Guinea's station on the 
E chmond and Fredericksburg railway and were halted in 
a meadow, which, as I have learned, was but a continua- 
tion of what is called " Stannard's Marsh." We were 
less than a mile northwest of the station. Guinea's Station 
was at that time the base of supplies for Lee's army. 

Monday night we slept wretchedly ,— those who slept at 
all. The ground was soft and wet, and we had been with- 
out food all the day ; we did not have even the comfort of 
fires. The strain had begun to tell. But we had reached a 
railroad. That fact had some consolation in it. And we were 
only about forty-five miles from Eichmond. 

Tuesday morning dawned. A stir at the station aroused 
us to wonderment. The rumor spread among us that the 
rebels had, after all, been defeated. Trains of baggage 
wagons came in from Fredericksburg, their horses at a 
gallop. We heard reports that the rebels were making prep- 
aration for a wholesale removal of their supplies towards 
Eichmond. Hope of recapture by our own men sprang 
up. The hope soon failed. We made a request for food. 
We were answered that there was none. We asked for 
wood. ' None to be had," was the reply. The day 
dragged along. In the afternoon a wagon was driven 
into our camp with rations, so we were told. It brought 
to us a half-barrel of salt beef and a barrel of flour. 
These rations were distributed. This was the way of the 
distribution : — the barrel of flour was tumbled from the 
wagon to the ground. The barrel burst open where it 



626 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 



fell. At the side of the flour the beef was dropped. 
Now, hungry as we were, what could we do with either 
the flour or the beef? We had neither kettles nor fire. 
There lay the two gifts of food. Gradually, the flour 
absorbed moisture from the earth and became a dirty 
brown paste, and the beef took on ironical red, white and 
blue tints from exposure to air and water. Some tried to 
eat of the pasty flour but soon had to give over the effort. 

We began to long for transportation to Eichmond. 
There, we felt sure, we should get both shelter and some- 
thing to eat. But Tuesday night came, and again we 
lay down for a night in the marshy meadow. 

Wednesday morning a chilling northeast wind arose 
with clouding skies. We did not seem to have anything 
to wake up for. That camp of Union soldiers was about 
as unhappy a looking set of men as one could see. Our 
clothing was wet through and through, and our stomachs 
were still empty. A few of us determined that, if possible, 
something should be done. What others did I do not know. 
This story centers around myself. Therefore, what three 
of those wretched men with me did to solve the problem, 
I can recount. We asked permission to go to a house 
about a quarter of a mile away to try to find food. Our 
request was granted. A kind-hearted fellow happened to 
be our guard. With some renewed hope we began our 
foraging expedition. At that house General " Stonewall " 
Jackson lay, dying. From our guard we learned that 
Jackson was in an extremely critical condition. We did 
not get quite to the house. At a cabin near-by, we found 
an aged negro woman. She had but little. We returned 
to the camp, however, with an old hen for which we paid 
$5.00 in United States money, together with about a. quart 
of corn-meal which cost us $1.00. On the way back, our 
soft-hearted guard led us by a tent near the railway, and 
allowed us to pick up a cast-away iron tea-kettle lying 
there. Then came the question of how to cook our dinner. 
The generous rebel helped us to gather some small sticks 
on the banks of the Ny ; in the little river there was water 
more than we needed. The fire problem, however, was 
difficult to solve. A pocket-knife had cut off the hen's 



1863 THEEE DAYS IN " STANNARIES MARSH " 627 



head and anatomized her body, Hen, corn-meal and 
water were mixed together in the rusted kettle. But the 
wood was damp and the river bank was wet. After all 
our efforts we could not get quite as much fire as smoke ; 
and I know it was hard work holding the kettle in the 
smoke. Not a stone on which to rest the kettle could be 
found. 

But suddenly in the midst of our proceedings came 
a crisis and a catastrophe. The novel soup was not 
even quite lukewarm, when all officers were ordered to fall 
into line. We obeyed the orders, of course, and hastened 
into camp. Each of us took place in the ranks carrying 
with him a handful of dripping chicken and warm corn- 
meal. One of our number still held on to the precious 
kettle. "To Richmond," was the cry. With .this pros- 
pect to stimulate us, we started for the station. On the 
way we disposed of our grabs of raw chicken. It was 
almost nightfull when we reached the railway. 

By that time the sky had become densely clouded. A 
thick mist was driving by on a chill wind. " Hope 
deferred maketh the heart sick," it is written. So, as 
night closed in, it was with increasing heaviness of heart 
that, in vain, we strained our eyes to find the cars which 
were to take us away from that place of increasing torture. 
Everything was in confusion about the station. Cars 
were shunting from track to track ; wagons coming and 
going ; men hurrying to and fro. The hours passed, but 
nothing came for us. Eight— nine o'clock was gone. 
Bain began to fall, and a fiercer, colder wind to blow. 
Still no cars came for us. Instead, when it was nearly 
ten o'clock, we were, to our dismay, driven back to the 
marsh. 

Returning there, we found it changing into a veritable 
swamp. Water seemed to ooze out of the ground 
as well as to pour down from the clouds. No one 
bettered himself by trying to get out of the water. Water 
covered everything. However, we began to care but little 
for whatever happened. M'y brain was giving way to a 
sort of torpor. I now can remember only, that with a 
kind of animal instinct at self-preservation, I groped about 



628 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR 



PART IV 



in the blackness of darkness and found a small hummock, 
on which I laid my canteen. I put my elbow on the 
canteen ; my head on my . elbow ; and there, with 
hundreds of comrades, I lay down in water to pass the 
doleful hours. 

I wish I had memory clear enough, or pen graphic 
enough, to describe the appearance of the Union pris- 
oners' camp at Guinea's Station the next morning. How 
those Confederate officers ever allowed it to become a 
possibility, even under the stress of the events following 
the battle, I have never been able to explain. To their 
everlasting dishonor they did permit it. Having had, 
practically, no food for four days ; being without shelter in 
prospect ; without even fires to protect us ; lying in water 
inches deep, and exposed to a piercingly chill northeast 
storm, I saw that Thursday morning come. Possibly the 
officers in command could have bettered our condition but 
little, if at all. Possibly, with prospect of removal to 
Richmond at any hour, they felt no necessity for making 
a change of camp. Possibly, they did not care. Yet, I 
must admit, our guards seemed almost as forlorn and 
famished as we were. 

How that Thursday went I do not remember. There was 
no pause in the storm, I know. Only as evening ap- 
proached came renewal of hope. We were again ordered 
to go over to the railway. That walk was a cheerless 
struggle through deep, soft mud. I fell two or three times 
on the way, from exhaustion. At the station some of 
our men sank down at the halt and swore they would not 
move again. This time, however, we had not been taken 
to the station on a fool's errand. At about nine o'clock, 
with many other Union officers, I climbed into a car 
headed for Richmond. I do not remember just how many 
of us were in the cars. My car, I recollect, was a rickety 
freight-box- It was seatless and windowless. Its roof 
gave no real protection from the beating rain. The floor 
was covered with filth nearly an inch deep ; mud and corn 
mixed. To say that we were crowded is not to tell the 
whole truth ; we could not, all, have sat down at once had 
we tried to sit down. We disposed of ourselves in many 



1S63 FROM " STANDARD'S MARSH " TO RICHMOND 629 



sorts of postures as best we could. Some of us would 
then have given up wholly had we not been supported by 
the confidence that before morning we should have release 
and at least shelter and food in Richmond. In truth, 
hardly as much consideration was given to us as 
is given to a carload of cattle. 

Well, soon after we had been jammed into those cars, 
the train was started and we braced ourselves for the night. 
But a tired horse could have gone as fast as that train 
went. Much must be considered as accounting for this, 
The track was single, and many obstacles were in the 
way. We were stopped often, and, to our great discom- 
fort, the loosely coupled cars were jerked backwards and 
forwards. But we were upheld by the feeling that the 
agony could not last much longer. At least, so felt those 
of us who were not too benumbed to feel. Yet, so slow 
was our progress that towards mid-night we had not gone 
farther on our way than about six miles. Again we 
began to move. I did not know what was being done. 
Doubled up in as small a place as I could take in a corner 
of the car, I knew only that we were moved, and stopped. 
Finally we came to another stop. Then there was a long 
silence. 

Dawn lightened slowly through the continuing storm. 
Soon I heard someone say, " Hell ! boys, we are 
still at Guinea's." And, for the truth, we were there. 
We were sidetracked just at the place from which we had 
started at ten o'clock the night before. There is no use 
in my trying to give you any notion of how we felt. 
I state merely the facts. Friday morning had come. 

That, as all things else, at length passed. Not 
a mouthful of food was given to us. Some of the 
men were allowed to get out of the car, and they lay be- 
side it and under it, in the mud, for hours. The rest of us 
stretched our benumbed bodies where we were. Gradually 
the rain ceased and the skies slowly brightened. ' About 
noon, for a second time we were packed into our box, and 
what proved to be the real start for Richmond was made. 

Of course, I cannot tell what justification the Confederate 
authorities might offer for this brutal manner of transport- 



630 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR 



PART IV 



ing us southward. I know that everything inside General 
Lee's lines was badly demoralized by the battle of Chan- 
cellorsville. Probably, too, the Confederates had hardly 
enough food at command with which to supply their own 
troops. All their means of railway carriage at Guinea's 
were in bad shape. But I often think that the authorities 
at Guinea's were as willing to see us as badly crippled 
through our misfortunes, while prisoners in their hands, as 
by the damage inflicted upon us in battle. 

At last, at about five o'clock, Friday evening, May 8, 
1863, we, threescore and more, thoroughly used-up Union 
officers were emptied out of our pen into one of the streets 
of the Confederate capital. The once dreaded city had, by 
force of events, become in imagination, a welcome place of 
refuge. Famished, filthy, many of us ragged, we moved 
painfully down a main street followed by crowds of men and 
women, and jeering, hooting boys. 

How is it in human possibility for us, who endured 
that week, ever to forget our suffering and humiliation ? 
Our experiences at Guinea's Station, and the manner in 
which we were taken to Richmond, had been as cruel as 
cruel could be under the Nineteenth Century's civilization, 
had there been any possibility of preventing it. 

I noticed but little in our walk. Only two things im- 
pressed themselves distinctly upon memory, excepting the 
taun tings of the crowd. We passed the Capitol. There 
stood the noble statue of Washington in the Capitol grounds, 
seemingly a spectator of the degradation of children of men 
who had fought and died under his leadership that their 
country might become the home of a free and independent 
nation. And there, too, stood on the Capitol's steps the 
leader of the rebellion against the Union, the rebel Presi- 
dent, — not a statue but a living man, — he, also, seemingly 
an impassive spectator of our degradation ; the degradation 
of many fellow Americans, whose only crime had been that 
they had done what they could to save the Union which 
Washington and our patriot fathers had bequeathed to 
posterity as a sacred trust for the blessing of mankind. 

Our forlorn band kept on its way, followed by the hoot- 
ing crowd. Then came the last moment in this little 



1863 



INTO LIBBY PRISON, RICHMOND 



631 



episode of the great war. We were halted in front of a 
large, three-storied, brick building. Looking up, I saw a 
white sign extended across the sidewalk. On it were 
painted these words ; " Libby and Son, Ship Chandlers 
and Grocers." By file right we passed under that and 
entered a broad, low-ceiled hallway. Again we were 
halted. Our journey was at its end. We had come from 
the " Battlefield at Chancellorsville into Libby Prison." 
^ * * * * 

Note. — ts Libby Prison 93 was a warehouse in Richmond, Virginia, 
located in the eastern part of the city, on Carey Street. It was an 
isolated building, erected on a corner lot which slopes rather abruptly 
almost to the canal that borders the James River. The building was 
three stories in height on Carey Street, and was divided into nine 
rooms, each about 105 feet by 45 feet in area. In addition, there were 
three large basement rooms or cellars,, which, on account of the sloping 
ground, gave the appearance of four stories to the building on the 
south side. 

Soon after the outbreak of the Civil War, the Confederate Govern- 
ment began to use this warehouse as a prison for captured Union soldiers. 
From twelve hundred to sixteen hundred men were constantly con- 
fined there during most of the war time. In 1863, the Commandant 
of this prison was Major Thomas P.Turner. The prison clerk was a 
civilian, E. W. Eoss. Assistants in the management of the prisoners 
were u Dick " Turner, Adjutant Latouche, and some non-commissioned 
officers with a guard of soldiers. 

At the close of the war "Libby Prison" remained as an object of 
curiosity to s ; ght-seekers. For a while it was put to various manufac- 
turing uses. I visited it in 1871. In 1S92-3 it was purchased, taken to 
pieces, transported to Chicago, Illinois, where, after many mishaps on 
the way thither — one of them being a railway wreck, — it was rebuilt to 
be a War Museum ; ' and an attraction to the multitudes who should 
visit the " World's Fair " of 1893. Some time ago the ill-fated struc- 
ture was torn down. The bricks, of which it was built, were stored 
away; I have not learned where. May the obscurity never be 
removed ! C. Mac C. 

>fc 5?= ^ ifc 

II. 

In Libby Prison and Out of It : Home Again. 

There are places whose names are remembered in his- 
tory as synonymous with extremes of human cruelty and 
suffering. Xo one can read the records, for example, of 
the dungeons of the Spanish Inquisition, of the Venice 
Ducal Palace, of the Tower of London, of Nurnberg 
Castle, or of the Bastile and their like, without a sense of 
repulsion, and, indeed, of horror. Man's inhumanity to 



632 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 



man, and man's power to endure, found culmination in 
those places of terrible memory. There are gradations, of 
course, in the degrees of torture and pain. The Tower of 
London stands at a far remove from the Black Hole of 
Calcutta. Yet, cruelty is cruelty; and, whether the tragic 
results follow in only one hour, or through a lapse of 
months and years, the deeds of cruelty are grouped together 
in man's memory in one isolated catalogue. In this cata- 
logue we have been obliged to enroll the names of the 
American Andersonville and Libby Prisons, the chief 
among the places in which the soldiers of the armies of 
the Union, taken in battle during the great Civil War of 
forty years ago, were confined. 

I. am to tell you now somewhat of Libby Prison, so 
far as personal knowledge extends. I shall not give a 
history of the prison throughout the four and more years 
of its existence. Nor shall I pass judgment upon those 
under whose charge, willingly or through the force of cir- 
cumstances, Libby Prison became a place of forbidding 
reminiscence. Nor yet have I a tale of horrors to telL 
There is but little for me to recall that might not have oc- 
curred under, possibly, well-intentioned but embarrassed 
superintendency. My experience as a prisoner of war was 
passed through before the Confederate States had suffered 
severely from the great conflict, and before the worse 
passions of the men who had command of Andersonville 
and the Richmond prisons were aroused by the widespread 
disaster and poverty that at length fell upon the States ia 
rebellion. I was confined in Libby Prison in the spring 
of 1863. The real inhumanities of the place were not de- 
veloped until a year later, when, with Andersonville, it 
became horrible from the deaths, and the lifelong disease 
of thousands of the soldiers of the Union. Of Anderson- 
ville, for instance, it is true that during the year 1864, 
forty-five thousand prisoners of war were received there, 
and that, of these, thirteen thousand died of starvation and 
want of care; and the great majority of those who remain- 
ed alive were returned to their homes hardly more than 
living skeletons ; practically all incurable invalids. It is 
not to be wondered at, therefore, that Henry Wirz, 



1S63 



EXPERIENCES IX LIBBY PRISON 



G33 



Superintendent of the Anderson ville torture-pen, was ex- 
ecuted by the Federal Government for his cruelty. Also, 
during the same year, Libby Prison, under charge of the 
notorious Major Thomas P. Turner, followed close upon 
Andersonville in imposed suffering and consequent mortal- 
ity. But, as I have said, in the year 1863, little that has 
classed this war-prison with the world's greatest places of 
cruelty and pain had come to pass. I can tell of kindlier 
things. So then to my story. 

I closed the first chapter of this recital with these words 
about the company of captured soldiers in which I was 
marched down the streets of Richmond on the 8th day of 
May, 1863 : " We were halted in front of a large, three- 
storied, brick building. Looking up I saw a white sign 
extended across the sidewalk from the west wall to a 
column. On it were painted these words, ' Libby and 
Son, Ship Chandlers and Grocers.' By ' file right,' we 
then passed under that, and entered a broad, low-ceiled hall- 
way. Again w T e were halted. Our journey was at its 
end. We had come from the " Battlefield at Chancellors- 
ville into Libby Prison.' " 

As it happened, I was well forward in the column, and 
was soon brought face to face with the prison officials. 

" Here you, strip ! " was the first word of greeting. It 
came from a tall, sallow-faced, but rather good-looking 
young fellow, uniformed in well-fitting gray as an officer 
of a rank 1 did not then know. " Here you, strip ! 
That's a good sword-belt you have, lieutenant. Sergeant, 
take off that belt." These words I heard in quick 
succession : and, before I quite knew what was being 
done, my sword belt was unbuckled and laid aside ; my 
ragged coat was opened and its inner pockets searched. 
We were a forlorn crowd ; of officers, nearly eighty in 
number ; for six days practically foodless. I cared little, 
consequently, for what was being done to me, except, 
indeed, for the loss of the prized and handsome belt, a 
present from some home friends. I had dearly wished to 
keep that as a memento of army service. I had refused 
for it a goodly sum of money at tha front the day after I 
had been taken prisoner. The major who had offered to 



634 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 



purchase it had said: "Better let me have it. Those 
home-guard skunks in Eichmond will rob you of it, sure." 

The sword, I had given up on the battlefield. That was 
a fortune of war. But the sword-belt, which should have 
remained my own, wakened the greed of that young officer. 
As it turned out, he appropriated it for himself. Through- 
out our stay in the prison I was compelled to see him daily 
at roll-call girdled with my precious property. A small 
grievance, perhaps one may say ; yet to me it was an out- 
rage. How T ever, in groups of a half dozen we were 
rapidly searched. In the search we were deprived of all 
sums of money beyond the small currency we happened to 
have. Indeed, we were received into that war-prison very 
much as though we were common criminals. The search 
being over, a registration was made of our names, positions 
and other facts. We were then taken to our place of con- 
finement. I was among the first who were freed from 
the personal indignities of the search and sent to quarters. 

I yet remember well the weary climbing of two flights of 
steps ; our being put into the great room which covered 
the eastern third, on the third floor ; my going hastily to an 
empty bunk that stood against the east wall and throwing 
myself down upon the hard boards in utter exhaustion, 
sick at heart. There was some feeling of relief, naturally, 
from the fearful strain of the march and of the rail journey 
from Guinea's Station ; but the miserable fatigue and dis- 
couragement of that first hour in the Richmond prison I 
can never forget so long as memory holds her own. 

I heard my companions come in, in groups, and find 
places for themselves. The room had seemed well filled 
when I entered it ; before long I had a sense of being in a 
mass of human-kind. The room was gradually over- 
crowded. More than two hundred men, as I found out 
afterwards, had been made occupants of this space of, say, 
one hundred by forty feet in area. Beds, even such as mine, 
could not be given to all. Many had to take places for 
themselves on the floor, and each show proprietorship by 
spreading there the blanket which he soon received from 
the warders. At about nightfall, baskets of bread were 
brought and given to us in quarter-loaf pieces. That was. 



1863 



EXPERIENCES IN LIBBY PElSON 



635 



all the food we received the first night. We were told, 
however, that we should have regular rations the next 
morning, and that if any of us wished to purchase extra 
food we should have the privilege of doing so from the 
amounts of money standing to our credits on the prison 
books. 

Well ; my bread having been eaten and some water 
drunk, I wrapped myself in my blanket, careless of what 
anyone else did, or of the noise of the crowd settling itself 
for the night. Soon I was lost in a sleep of which I 
remember nothing except that nothing at all was remem- 
bered. My bed was but boards ; my clothing was as 
brambles, logs, swamps, rain and the filth of the cars had 
made it ; my food had stayed hunger, but it had not done 
more ; yet I slept that night through as though to exist 
were only to sleep. 

We had a queer reveille the next morning. I was sud- 
denly recalled to consciousness by a loud, musical voice 
crying, — " Great news in de papers! news from Missis- 
sippi ; news from Alabama ; new T s from Tennessee ; great 
news in de papers. Good mornin', gemmen ! " At once 
the silence of the room was broken. We were all awake, 
and nearly all in speech. I sat up, for the moment dazed ; 
my eyes dazzled by the sun's rays shining full across my 
bunk ; my ears confused by .the sudden clamor and 
shouts of the two hundred and more men who covered the 
floor of that big grocery-house loft. Above all the other 
noises, however, rang out the musical call, " Great news in 
de papers." It came, I. soon saw, from a big mulatto, 
who stood near the stairway holding in his hands a bundle 
of Eichmond's morning papers. The American's passion 
for news soon made babel even in that unhappy mass of 
men ; for from every side arose confused answering yells, 
of which I remember, " Here, uncle ! " " This way, 
general ! " " What you got. Pete ? " and like welcoming 
demands. Rapidly the newsmen picked his way around 
the room followed by a rustling of the- opening journals. 
Very soon " Examiners," " Inquirers " and " Whigs " by 
the score, transformed the scene, from where I sat, as into 
a festival with waving banners. Leading items, about the 



636 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 



fluctuations of the war over the thousands of miles of the 
battle lines between Union and Confederate forces, were 
shouted from one to another. But, gradually, comparative 
quiet fell upon us. The mulatto had gone away, and the 
unwelcome realities of the situation were quickly obtrusive. 

I then began to busy myself with trying to put some com- 
fort into my surroundings. Meanwhile, I gradually took 
note of the place that had become our enforced home. The 
room was directly under a roof which arose from the side 
walls of the building, a little more than four feet from 
the floor, to a ridge about fifteen feet above us, exposing the 
roof's timbers. We were in the loft of a big, river-side busi- 
ness house, used before the war by a Mr. Libby as a ship- 
chandlery and wholesale grocery, and appropriated by the 
Confederate government for the confinement of captured 
soldiers. There were three rooms like ours on each of the 
second and third floors of the house. On the lowermost 
floor there was a hospital, and in the cellar there was, 
among other things, a dungeon for the confinement of men 
adjudged to be, or treated as criminals. Indeed, the day 
after my release, the men remaining in the room in which 
I had been confined, were compelled to draw lots for two 
of their number to be hanged. This was done as retalia- 
tion for certain acts of Union soldiers in a distant part of 
the country. These men were not hanged, because of fear 
of worse reprisal on the part of the Federal government ; 
but they were thrown into that cellar-dungeon, and were 
kept there for some months. 

But let me recall some other happenings of that 9th of 
May. In the southeast corner of the room w T ere two large 
cooking-stoves. Probably, something to eat was the very 
first consideration of importance that morning in the. 
mind of each one of that ragged, half-famished crowd ; 
certainly that was true at least of the fourscore new 
arrivals of the night before. It is not to be wondered 
at, therefore, that soon there was a large group of 
men, each man impatiently awaiting his turn, at the 
stoves in which big fires had been kindled. About the 
time of our awaking, quantities of bread, bacon and 
beans had been brought and been piled up on two long 



1563 



EXPERIENCES IN LIEBY PRISON 



637 



pine tables which stood rear the stoves. From these 
heaps were given to each applicant, — in portions, say, of 
six ounces of bread, two of bacon and a small cupful of 
beans — his day's rations. I w r as content to eat my bread 
with some slices of raw bacon and to await the course of 
events. An immediate neighbor and I at length resolved 
to have a feast. We sent for eggs which cost us §1.65 a 
dozen, and for sugar for which we paid $1.50 a pound, in 
Union money. With these gains he and I during that 
morning had an extravagant omelette, — the eggs mixed 
with boiled beans and sugar, and fried with bacon. 
Before noon, however, the chief discomfort of the room 
increased to excess. The two stoves were kept in opera- 
tion without pause. Two hundred men to two stoves was 
a relation out of all reasonable proportion. The stoves, 
consequently, were so hard worked that they overheated 
the room. Besides, the low roof being covered with tin, 
the fierce heat of the Southern sun beat through that, 
adding intensity to the sweltering atmosphere. Before 
the noon hour, nearly all of us were stripped to the waist ; 
were barefooted and were trying to find some cooling air 
for our fevered bodies. It w r as a sorry sight ; that of our 
crowd of active, energetic men, hemmed in, cramped, each 
by his neighbors, none of them in fact nourished by food, 
all fatigued by severe antecedent hardships and suffering 
from the doubly intensified heat. This scene was con- 
tinued through each day of the wretched days many of us 
spent in that furnace-like loft. The windows at the ends 
of the room were not much more than three feet in height, 
rising directly from the floor ; the windows of the east 
wall were hardly much better placed. In fact, so ill was 
the ventilation, that there was very little escape for the 
superheated air. It filled, and remained suspended in, 
the low angle of the wide roof over our heads. Along 
and near the floor fresh, though heated, breezes often 
moved, but above w 7 as a stagnant, fetid mass, whose ' 
poisonous fumes again and again descended upon us. 

I have some notes of that memorable week, written on 
the steamer in which I was carried from the South. 
They tell hardly anything of exceptional interest that 



638 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 



varied the monotony of the cheerless experience I have 
just recalled. For most of the time, there was simply a 
rigid endurance of loss of personal freedom ; of inability to 
move around except by interference with the movements 
of others; of privation of good and palatable food ; and, 
through a large part of each day, of suffering from a heat 
such as one seldom anywhere is compelled to undergo. 
Yet, a few incidents of special memory will bear repetition. 

On Sunday, May 10th, a chaplain who had been taken 
prisoner, because, contrary to the popular fancy about 
chaplains, he had gone to the front, even into the battle 
line, with " his boys," as he called the members of his 
regiment, and there had met with the misfortune of 
capture, — this chaplain invited us to join him in divine 
worship. A captain conducted the introductory services of 
reading and prayer, and the chaplain preached from the 
text — probably one of the most difficult of all texts under 
the circumstances: — " Seek ye those things which are 
above." It was an exhortation very hard for us to heed. 
But the sermon was excellent. It even gave some dignity 
and hope to life, forlorn and hopeless though life then 
seemed. However, to the sermon there were strong 
contrasts. Some of the men were possessors of cards 
instead of the New Testament, commonly the American 
volunteer's vade mecum ; indeed, some men had not 
hesitatsd to carry both cards and Bible about their persons. 
On that Sunday, consequently, there was card-playing as 
well as church-going, side by side on the crowded floor. 
There was scarcely any literature among us other than 
that which appeared in the poverty-stricken looking 
newspapers brought to us by the privileged news-seller. 
Then, excepting the incoming of a few Confederate officials 
and prominent citizens of Richmond, nothing else occurred 
to break the monotony of that Sunday. But it was a 
remarkable evidence of the unnaturalness of the American 
Civil "War— was it not? — that several of these visitors 
came for the purpose of finding out whether any friends 
or relatives of theirs were among us, or whether any of us 
might have news of persons in the North with whom 
they were connected by ties of friendship or family. 



1S63 



EXPERIENCES IN LIBBY PRISON 



639 



On Monday morning, however, came a genuinely 
exciting bit of news. Our reveille was again the negro's 
musical call of " Great news in de papers." But hardly 
had the man passed the inner sentinel and made his first 
sale, before a voice cried out, " Hello ! boys : Stonew 7 ali 
Jackson is dead." That teas news ! We had known 
that the greatest of the corps leaders of the Southern army 
had been wounded and would probably die ; nevertheless 
news of his death was a startling surprise. By his 
splendid strategy and daring, the defeat of our army at 
Chancellors ville had been accomplished. It is not to be 
wondered at, then, that we did not grieve to hear of his 
death, however much we might honor and revere his 
memory as a brave and good soldier. From this point of 
view, then, no apology is necessary for the little incident 
that took place at the foot of my neighbor's bunk, as the 
newsman stopped there for a moment, It reveals a 
feeling common then to the Southern slaves : " Say, 
uncle," w T hispered my neighbor, " Ain't you glad that 
Stonewall Jackson is dead ? " The man at first would 
not answer; but, to a repetition of the question, he 
replied rapidly and almost inaudibly, " Of course I is," 
immediately shouting out, " Great news in de papers." 

Another item ; — that afternoon I almost lost my life for 
doing what in the following year w 7 ould certainly have 
caused me to be shot. The flag cf the Confederacy was 
at half-mast on the Capitol, to show respect for the 
dead hero. It could be seen from the north windows, 
I heard. Ignorant of any rule to the contrary, I leaned far 
out of one of the windows that I might get a good view, 
when suddenly I heard the command, ■ 4 Take in your 
head, there, you damned Yank ! " At first I did not 
understand, but looking downwards I saw that one of the 
sidewalk patrol w 7 as aiming his musket at me. I did not 
continue looking. In 1864, several men were were shot 
for doing less than I had done. Close proximity to a 
window a year later was sufficient cause for murder. 
After the much-celebrated escape by tunnel from the 
prison had been made, the authorities, suspecting the use 
of signals to outside helpers, forbade approach of the con- 



640 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 



fined soldiers to the windows. Again, on that same day, 
we were considerably stirred by an item in the papers to 
the effect that Bobert Ould, tbe Confederate commissioner 
for exchange of prisoners, had gone to City Point to make 
an arrangement for a large exchange of our men for 
Southern soldiers who were on the way thither from the 
North in flag-of-truce vessels. City Point lay more than 
thirty-five miles away, near Petersburg, with the siege of 
which, begun the next year, the war was brought to a 
close, This news about Commissioner Ould at once started 
the question, " Are we indeed going home so soon ? " 

Monday night came. It passed without special event. 
A widespread complaint of the appearance of vermin had 
arisen during the day. The building, notwithstanding 
the fresh whitewash that brightened the walls, was infested. 
Also, several of our company had fallen ill from the heat, 
from poor food, and from reaction from the exposure of 
the week before. They had been removed to the hospital 
ward. One of our comrades had apparently become 
insane. He had for hours paced up and down the length 
of the room wringing his hands and singing at short 
intervals, " When this cruel war is over." The guards 
that evening took him away. During Monday night 
nothing noteworthy occurred. 

As Tuesday morning dawned we were again aroused by 
the newsvender's call of " Great news in de papers." Yet, 
how soon the prison life had made its evil influence felt ! 
There was that morning very little of the brave fan-making 
of Saturday and Sunday. Most of the men were dull 
and gloomy. The intense heat continued. We were 
becoming wretchedly tired of one another. We were 
altogether too many. We had entirely too little with 
which to occupy heads and hands. Probably, because the 
Confederate authorities knew that they would very soon 
send most of us away on parole they supposed it no cruelty 
to crowd so many men into that loft. Possibly, too, 
accommodation for our large numbers was not available. 

Tuesday morning advanced in that hot, overcrowded 
room, to men already tired out and disheartened. On 
that day, however, to ninety-six of them came deliverance. 



lS6o 



HOW MY RELEASE FROM PBISON CAME 



641 



Towards noon, through one of guards, we heard that some 
of us — how many he could not tell — were to go to City 
Point. At about noon, official confirmation of the report 
came. Little comfort, however, was there for me in the 
official orders. All officers above the grade of second 
lieutenant, so we were told, upon giving their " parole of 
honor " not to take arms against the Confederate forces 
until they should have been regularly and legally exchang- 
ed, would be marched to City Point and there delivered into 
the care of officers of the Federal army. At this an- 
nouncement I was as thoroughly depressed as, I suppose, 
my companions of superior rank were elated. Should 
those flag-of-truce boats return to the North without me, 
I lamented, what should I do? The prospect was un- 
bearably dark. I saw that among the fortunate many all 
had become bustle and preparation. There was hardly 
any preparation for them to make, to be sure ; the rolling 
up of a blanket with a few articles of personal use in it, 
perhaps ; yet there was much ado among them about even 
this nothing. There were messages, too, from those left 
behind to those who were going, to be sent to the dear 
ones at home, that they might know that husbands, and 
brothers, and sons were not dead. So, the noon hours 
passed . 

But I was on the alert. I was determined to get into 
that lucky detail, if there were the slightest way opened 
for it, I felt a touch of encouragement from the fact 
that a white-haired second lieutenant had been ex- 
cepted from the excluded number. The line, I saw, was 
not to be drawn rigidly at rank. Besides, when, at last, 
the hour for departure came and the names of the 
fortunate ones were called, I noticed that a first lieutenant 
did not go out in answer to the summons. He had 
become so ill that he could not move. What ministering 
spirit helped me, I do not know, but there flashed through 
my busy brain the thought, " Suppose, after all, that the 
number in the detail is to be kept full, even though that 
first lieutenant can not go." Acting upon this inspiration, 
I put myself near the door as the chosen ones passed out. 
The roll-call at length came to an end. The summoning 



642 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR TART IV 



officer following the last released prisoner, the door was 
slammed shut, leaving only the guard standing there 
leaning upon his musket. " Is there no chance? " thought 
I. None, so it seemed. But still, for some reason, I 
stayed just where I had been waiting. That door was 
like a gate to heaven in my longing eyes. And it was as 
though some voice were saying to me, " Stay here ! " I 
lingered there, one, two, five minutes, perhaps, when — for 
a fact — the door was flung open ; the officer had returned ; 
and, — scarcely could I believe my ears, — I heard him 
shouting out what meant a summons for another man. 
I sprang for the opened door. Hands, how many I never 
saw, clutched at me. Part of my coat I left with some one ; 
and through that door I plunged. As 1 tumbled out, a 
sentry slapped me on the back, with the greeting, " Bully 
for you, you little Yank ! " In the hallway below, I gave 
parole in the midst of congratulations. 

And why should I not be congratulated ? Congratulation 
was there for any one who might have come. Besides, I 
had been the youngest inmate in the officers' quarters. 
I had entered the prison on my twentieth birthday. 

We were a long column, made up of officers and of 
privates, gathered from I know not where. The afternoon 
was excessively hot. But what cared we for that heat ! 
We were off for home, — for home. That thought lighten- 
ed everything else ; fatigue, rags, sultry air. We spoke, 
as we went, of the men left behind, but we could not 
sorrow for them, so jubilant were we at our own deliverance. 
No martial music led our column ; we needed none. We 
were off for home. 

However, we were not yet at home ; not yet even free. 
We had a night before us, the worst I ever passed 
through ; a night that brought suffering to last for a long 
time to many ; and that brought death to several of my 
home-going companions before the next dawn. 

Our column began to move at about four o'clock, under 
guard of a squadron of mounted men from the ' ' Thirty- 
first Virginia Battalion." The sun was oppressive to an 
extreme degree. We crossed the James River on a bridge, 
into Manchester opposite, and turned southward towards 



1S63 



A SUFFERING MARCH TO CITY POINT 



643 



Petersburg. The bridge lay over Belle Isle. As we 
marched, I saw the shadeless, filthy, open-air camp of the 
Union prisoners there. We soon made our way through 
Manchester, and entered the main road towards our des- 
tination. It was not long before heat and ill preparation 
for the march began to show their effects. Breathing was 
tormented by the dense clouds of dust that arose from our 
tramping. Soon, too, the feet of our cavalry and field 
officers began to scald and to blister. Besides, Lieutenant 
Dedrich, who commanded our portion of the column, kept 
the horses of his men going at a pace which, though it 
was only a walk, compelled us who were leading to move 
rather rapidly, and soon forced those at the rear into 
frequent runnings. Before nightfall, even, the rear of the 
column was straggling badly. But we kept on in our 
march, halting only when the straggling compelled a halt. 

Then came night. With nightfall the sky, which had 
been clouding before the setting of the sun, began to grow 
darker from an oncoming storm. Just when the storm 
broke, I do not know. At length it burst upon us with 
the terrific force that tempests in the American Southern 
States often show. Bain came down as a wind -driven 
torrent. Soon the dusty road was turned into a ditch of 
flowing mud. But our column did not, even then, come 
to a halt for rest. We were urged on through the violence 
of the storm. At about ten o'clock the tempest was at its 
wildest. The lightning was almost csaseless, and the 
thunder became a constant succession of crashes and 
deafening tumults. So black was the night that, except for 
the lightning, I could not see the man at my side. How 
it fared with the rear of the column, I could not tell. As 
we heard no command to stop we kept on, plunging 
through the stream that the road had become. 

At midnight, the worst of the storm had passed and had 
left only a gentle falling of rain. The lightning flashes 
then were darting along the distant eastern sky, and the 
rolling of the thunder came from far away. Not until 
about two o'clock were we brought to a long halt. At 
that time all pretence of order was gone. What had 
become of our column no one knew. When I learned 



644 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 



that we were really stopped, I pushed a way into the 
woods at the side of the road ; threw myself down upon 
the saturated ground and soon was fast asleep. How 
long I slept, I do not know. A terrific burst of thunder 
awoke me. Another tempest had fallen upon us. In my 
stupor I scrambled out upon the roadside, fell into the 
mud there ; and there slept until daybreak. 

"When I awoke again, the sky had cleared ; the dawn 
was coming ; a bright day was in full promise. But what 
was the condition of that hapless detachment of returning 
war prisoners ? It had been scattered along a distance 
of several miles. During the march in the storm it 
had lost all semblance of cohesion. The first work of 
the guard, therefore, as day broke, was to bring the dis- 
integrated mass into something like the shape it had had 
the day before. That was hard work. And it was cruel 
work. The sabre, with the voice, was often used to hasten 
lagging footsteps ; and, in that morning hour, word was 
passed along the lines of deaths, and of men dying. We 
believed then, and I yet believe, that four of our number, 
that night and morning, from fatigue, from exposure to 
the storm, and from the cruelty of the guards, lost their 
lives. 

Our column was at last in shape again, and we were on 
our way towards Petersburg. The road lay near the rail- 
way. There passed us, early, a train of twenty-two empty 
cars, speeding in the same direction as that in which we 
were struggling on foot. There were cars enough to have 
carried us all. As we neared Petersburg, our driver, 
Dedricb, tried to force us into a four-rank order. Inabil- 
ity to obey his command made him furious. Near me 
rode a guard — Hudson by name — who, among other kind 
acts, had dismounted to allow one of our badly exhausted 
superior officers to ride. When Dedrich saw what Hud- 
son had done he ferociously cursed the man, and threaten- 
ed him with the guard-house in Petersburg if he attempt- 
ed that thing again. At near nine o'clock we entered 
Petersburg, about twenty-three miles from Richmond. 
The first stage of that memorable march had been passed. 

From Petersburg the road lay northeasterly towards 



1863 A MEMORABLE RETURN TO FREEDOM 645 

City Point, thirteen miles away. Those miles were at 
length behind us. Yet, while there was the certainty to 
sustain us that at the end of those miles lay freedom, com- 
fort, and friends, many w T ho passed over that road that 
day have never forgotten its torture. I was young, strong, 
and was an infantry officer. But there were cavalry 
officers, and worn-out men, and men of mature years, with 
me. I need not tell all of what some of them endured, 
but I know of men who walked that morning with the 
soles of their feet in places bared of skin by the breaking of 
large blisters raised by the march in the dust and mud of 
the night before. I was tired enough, but there were 
many far worse off than I was. I will not, however, 
keep you longer on this painful part of my story. 

Between one and two o'clock, freedom really came. 
Can you imagine my feelings, as, reaching the crest of a 
low hill over which the road passed, I saw, not far away, 
the flag of the Union fluttering from a steamer's mast in 
the noon sun-light ? That flag — delight as it is to patriotic 
eyes in a strange or far-off land — on that May 14th, 
awoke in us almost the joy that deliverance from death 
and hell would bring to the soul. To step from under the 
" Stars and Bars " of the Confederacy, across the steamer's 
gangway, into the shadow of the " Stars and Stripes " of 
the Union, was, for the moment, perhaps, source of the 
greatest gladness I could have known. There had been 
but little delay for us after w r e reached the railway pier. 
For, perhaps, half an hour we had lain upon the pier. 

To our amazement, we had been halted at the side of 
the same train of cars that had been rushed by us in the 
early morning. There, at City Point, it had been filled 
with returning Confederate war prisoners w T ho had had 
easy transportation through the isorth to the very wharf 
on which this reception-train stood. Why that awful 
night march was forced upon us when we could all have 
been easily carried by rail to our flag-of-truce boat, I never 
knew. But it is true, that we were transferred to our 
Government authorities a famished, exhausted, crippled, 
and seriously injured body of men ; and that, in our stead, 
were sent back to Kichmond, to all appearances, a well- 



646 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 



fed and vigorous re-enforcement for the armies of the 
rebellion. 

Here this story might end. Yet, allow me a few words 
more to tell of the home-coming. From City Point on, we 
received nothing but comforts with which to make good for 
our privations. The first meal on our fine steamer S. E. 
Spaitlding was a feast rather than a mere dinner. Some 
of our number, it is true, were confined to beds, and were, 
all the way to the North, under medical care. I recovered 
rapidly from the fatigue and depression. I made a luxury 
of life even before we reached Annapolis, three days later. 
Baths, food, and sleep did not cleanse or mend ragged 
clothing, but they did refresh the young body. And 
freedom, with the hope of soon seeing home, made the 
bright skies brighter, and wrought for every hour a jubilee. 
Speeding down the James Eiver, as I sat at the stern of 
our steamer, for once having been feasted ; and enjoying 
one of the fine cigars — a Havana at that ! — which had 
liberally been given to each one at table — at table, mind 
you ! — with our wine and coffee — pardon the memory ! — 
I w T as entertained by seeing from a lounging deck-chair 
many places made famous in the Peninsula Campaign of 
the year before. 

At Fortress Monroe, far within the Union lines, our white 
flag-of- truce furled and stowed away, I felt again really free. 
I began to remember the past fortnight as only a horrid 
dream. From Annapolis I was soon sent to Harrisburg, 
Pennsylvania, w T here my regiment was awaiting discharge 
* * * * * 

On the 20th day of May I re-entered my company's 
camp. I w T as welcomed as one returned from the dead. 
Eeturned from the dead, I say, for as one brought back to 
life from death I was greeted everywhere. It falls to the 
lot of but few persons to read their own obituaries. Yet 
this lot was mine. Credible word had been sent home 
that I had been killed. In consequence, the valedictorian 
of my college class and my home parish minister had pre- 
pared memorials of " the close of my young life/' And in 
The Nassau Literary Magazine there appeared, simul- 
taneously with a visit that I soon made to the College, an 



1863 



A PREMATURE OBITUARY 



047 



obituary, which opened with telling of how " a few hours 
before the expiration of his term of enlistment, Clay Mac- 
Cauley fell fighting for the cause of Liberty/' The special 
personal tribute following, I need not repeat. I quote 
farther only that, " on the beautiful banks of the Rappa- 
hannock he is gently sleeping the sweet sleep of the Hero 
and Patriot — 'testifying from the silent land beyond, 
through the echoing halls of memory, how sweet it is to 
die for one's country.' " So, you see, I am one of the few 
who have been privileged to enjoy the praise which men 
are so chary of giving us while we live, but which they 
lavish upon our memories when we are dead. 

Our regiment remained in Harrisburg only two days 
after I rejoined it. Then the real home-coming took place. 
Freed from rags, well clothed, and well nurtured, I march- 
ed down the Main Street of my native place, Chambers- 
burg, Pennsylvania, on the 23d day of May, accompanying 
the comrades who remained of the companies that had gone 
thence to the war in the summer of the year before. 

That day was the gladdest of all the days of that memor- 
able year. With church bells ringing ; streets lined with proud 
and happy fathers, mothers, wives, sisters, and sweethearts ; 
Franklin Hall doors standing wide open in welcome ; we 
marched along the decorated street and through those 
opened doors. There, after glad words of welcome and 
feasting, we separated ; free to go to our homes ; civilian, 
not soldier, citizens. Then, the best pleasure of all, but 
hidden from the world's sight, came, — that of welcome 
from the dear ones in the home. At the sacred threshold 
of the home let this recital end. 

My further experiences in connection with our armies 
during the Civil War, particularly as volunteer assistant in 
field hospitals, and as delegate of the "Christian Commis- 
sion " have been already summarized in the Second 
Chapter of the First Part of these " Memories." 

Before passing on, however, it will be of interest, I think, 
to associate with these recollections of the Civil War, two 



648 MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR FART IV 

other " Memorials " prepared in later years, which bear 
a close relationship to the mighty conflict. 

VII. 

THE EHODE ISLAND MONUMENT AT 
ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 

In December 1902, the General Assembly of Rhode 
Island passed a resolution providing for the erection of a 
monument at Andersonville, Georgia, in memory of the 
soldiers of the State who had died in the Confederate 
Prison located there. A handsome monument of granite 
and bronze was soon erected, and I was honored by an 
invitation to offer the Dedicatory Prayer and to deliver the 
Memorial Address at its dedication. 

A large party, consisting of the Governor of Rhode 
Island, Lucius F. C. Garvin, and his staff, together with 
the members of the Senate and House Committees and 
several prominent citizens of the State, went to Anderson- 
ville to conduct the ceremony of dedication. 

On April 30th, 1903, in their presence, with various ad- 
dresses ; by the Governor, by the Hon. E. L. Freeman of 
the Senate, by the Hon. Joseph P. Burlingame of the 
House, and by Mrs. Lisbeth A. Turner, chairman of 
the Board of Control of the Andersonville Prison Prop- 
erty, the solemn memorial was celebrated. I repeat 

for these "Memories " the Memorial Oration. 

***** 

Citizen-Life in Memory of " Our Honored Dead." 

In memory of men who, at this place, sacrificed their 
lives that their country might endure among the nations 
of the earth, we are gathered to-day. As a memorial of 
that sacrifice, we have dedicated this stately monument. 
May it remain to unnumbered generations a sign of su- 



Rhode Island Monument, Andersonville, Georgia, 1903 



1864 TRIBUTE TO " OUR HONORED DEAD " 649 

preme human devotion, and be always a summons to them, 
if need be, to show like consecration. 

Here, through hardships almost incredibly severe, 
thousands of patriot-soldiers died. With a recreant prom- 
ise they might have lived and gained comparative ease. 
Death was chosen rather than dishonor. Surrounded now 
by the graves of this martyr-host, we bow in homage ; and 
we meditate with proud gratitude upon their heroism. 

All those whose bodies lie here are objects of reverent 
remembrance ; but among them, peculiarly sacred to us, are 
the seventy-four whose names stand forth in lustrous 
bronze upon that block of granite. Our Rhode Island, 
the smallest of the commonwealths of the United States, 
sent more than twenty-three thousand men into the ranks 
of the army of the Union. Many of these yielded their 
lives upon fields of battle ; many more died in hospitals, of 
wounds and disease received in service ; yet more — hund- 
reds — were victims of the privations and cruelties that 
wretchedly distinguished the military prisons maintained 
by the enemies of the Union. This Anderson ville stock- 
ade w T as only the largest and most deadly of the Confederate 
prisons. The Rhode Island soldiers who died here were 
few compared with the fourteen thousand comrades with 
whom they perished. We have erected this monument 
to these few, since they are especially endeared to us by 
the ties of immediate citizenship, of kindred, and of home ; 
but in our Memorial we are, as well, showing grateful 
reverence to the whole patriot-host. Rhode Island was 
vitally one in the memorable fraternity of States that 
saved the Federal Union from destruction. In fact, 
through this special tribute from our small commonwealth, 
we are commemorating, too, all the heroes who died for 
their country in the conflict of forty years ago. 

I have named these dead, " patriots " and " heroes." I 
speak deliberately. In the truest sense of the words, all 
the soldiers who were martyred on this spot, and who died 
from disease, wounds, or in battle, may rightfully be 
cherished in memory as patriot-heroes. The four-score, 
whose names shine on those tablets ; the thousands who 
are interred in yonder cemetery ; the many thousands who 



650 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 



lie in unmarked and unnamed graves on the hills and 
plains of the South ; the hundreds of thousands of those 
whose names and places of burial are known and cared for 
throughout the land ; all those who in any way sacrificed 
their lives in effort to defend the Union from those who 
would destroy it, are now exalted for mankind as types of 
patriotic and heroic manhood. These soldiejr-dead do not 
remain in memory as the individualized men they were, — 
that is to say, as they were known by those with whom 
they were in daily and familiar association. As definite 
personalities they were, like all other men, in many ways 
limited. Many of them may have been far from realizing 
in common life the best ideals of manhood — of life in the 
home, in society, in the church. The whole broad range 
of human character, possibly from personal baseness to tba 
highest sainthood, could be found among them. But 
such distinctions do not characterize them for us. They 
exist for us now as men transfigured and glorified by the 
sublime idea to which they were faithful unto death. For 
us they are freed from the limitations of ordinary life ; 
separated from their failings under personal weakneses ; 
released from the errors, vice, and even crime into which 
they may have fallen in the struggle for existence. We 
know them now, above all, under the one distinction — 
" Defenders of their Country/' faithful in that service unto 
death. They are America's patriot- heroes. We may 
freely give them the highest eulogies of heart and brain. 
To them, as men having made real the patriot's ideal, our 
monument is raised and will bear witness into the coming 
centuries. 

The story of the Confederate States Military Prison at 
Andersonville has often been told. I shall not repeat it. 
Yet some of its more important facts should be recalled at 
this time, in order that the full . depth of the meaning of 
our dedicated work shall be clearly understood. 

***** 

Towards the close of 1863, the Federal armies began 
to press closely- upon the Confederate lines. Then, also, as 
it happened, the parole and exchange of prisoners of war 
thitherto prevailing became seriously obstructed ; obstacles 



1864 THE ANDERSONVILLE PRISON STOCKADE 651 



to it were raised by the Confederate Government over 
questions concerning the captured negro soldiers of the 
Union. Consequently the numbers of war prisoners, held 
both in the South and in the North, were greatly increased. 
The continued advances of the Federal armies imperilled 
the hold of the Confederates upon the Union prisoners con- 
fined in Richmond and near the border of conflict. It was 
decided, then, to send the larger part of the captives into 
the less vulnerable interior of the country. Andersonville 
was chosen as the main place for their detention. 

Evidently, in selecting this locality, there was no pur- 
pose to produce the tragic results that made the prison a 
reproach to humanity and fixed a horrible blot upon 
modern civilization. This plateau is well adapted by 
nature to meet the physical needs of human life. It is 
temperate in climate ; it was plentifully wooded ; it has 
water abundant in quantity and pure in quality ; and it 
has a porous soil, easily drained. Railway communication 
with it was easy, and the means of transportation were 
ample and unobstructed. But, almost from the day that 
this military prison was established, its management, to 
say the best of it, was one of misfortune and of misjudg- 
ment. And, speaking of its further management, we 
must declare, notwithstanding all that may be said in 
extenuation, it became, and to the end continued to be, 
one of grossest inhumanity and even of. terrible crime. 

As originally planned, an area about eighteen acres in 
extent was set apart for the prison, and enclosed as an 
open stockade. The forest that stood on these slopes was 
felled by enforced negro labor, and the timber transformed 
into a double wall, making an inner enclosure approx- 
imately a thousand feet long by eight hundred wide. That 
creek, flowing across the enclosure, was left as a water 
supply. The full capacity for the prison, as at first deter- 
mined, was for ten thousand men. 

In February, 1864, the stockade was ready for its use. 
Here, in the midst of pine woods, it stood ; the ground 
bared of tree and even of shrub ; empty of everything that 
could fit it for human habitation ; awaiting the coming of 
the unfortunates doomed to it by the hazards of war. 



652 



MEMOETALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 



The fifteenth day of that February, 860 soldiers from 
the North, despoiled first of most of the articles for personal 
service or comfort they carried, were driven through one 
of the stockade-gates, — the first of the ill-fated host. Not a 
thing for their shelter was given them ; not a shred of 
clothing or bit of covering for the nights did they receive. 
As a matter of course, food was provided, but from the 
outset that was neither ordinarily nutritious nor sufficient 
in quantity. The increasing poverty of the Confederacy 
explains in part — not wholly — this fault. By the end of 
the month, the number of prisoners had become 1,600. 

Before March had closed fully 5,000 men were here, and 
the twelve acres only that the prisoners could use of the 
eighteen within the stockade were uncomfortably occupied. 
Already in March, by reason of exposure to the varying 
cold, sleet, rain, and heat of the winter and spring ; and 
by reason of increasingly pcor and insufficient food, sick- 
ness had begun to make fatal attacks upon the prisoners. 
The men had secured no shelter from the weather except 
such poor protection as could be gained from pits dug into 
the hillsides, or from the blankets stretched over them 
upon stakes, and the coats and the dog-tents which some 
of them had carried on their persons when captured. As 
early as the month of March, diarrhoea, dysentery, even 
scurvy and other diseases consequent upon the conditions 
prevailing, caused' the extraordinary death-rate of nine 
each day. 

For some time the authorities in charge of the prison 
paid no attention whatever to the sick, beyond the issue of 
some inferior medicines to those who applied for them. 
Not until the month of May was an attempt made to 
establish a hospital. By the end of April more than 8,000 
men had been put into the stockade, and the average daily 
death list had increased to nineteen. When May had 
closed more than 15,000 men were crowded together here. 
The established capacity of the prison had not only been 
reached, but it had been passed to the extent of more than 
5,000. 

Imagine what this fact means. Army regulations 
give to each soldier, in a well-ordered camp, a space of 



1S64 



THE HORROR OF ANDERSON VILLE 



653 



1,731 square feet. In the necessarily compact area of a 
fortress he is allowed 244 square feet. In barracks, where 
the densest quartering of soldiers is made but where every 
man is thoroughly sheltered and hygienic precautions 
are carefully provided and cared for, 54 square feet are 
given. But here, where there was neither shelter nor 
any sanitary regulation whatever, the original plans 
had allowed for each person only 50 square feet when 
the limit of 10,000 occupants should be reached. Yet, 
in May, with 15,000 prisoners under charge, less than 30 
square feet, or six feet square, was all the space each man 
could have claimed as his own had the w T hole available 
area been equally divided among them. The average daily 
death rate had then become twenty-three, and the number 
of the sick had mounted into the thousands. 

From that time on horrors fast accumulated. In June, 
26,000 men were herded on this field ; and that stream's 
banks had become a vile and pestiferous bog. The mortality 
averaged forty daily. In July, there were 31,000 victims 
here, and fifty-eight of them died each day. The mass of 
helpless humanity became more than 82,000 in August ; 
and had they all then stood equally apart each would have 
possessed a bit of ground less than six feet by three feet in 
area : — no more than is allowed for one when he is in his 
coffin. The average of daily deaths then had become 
almost incredibly large ;— one hundred men perished each 
day. On August 23rd, one hundred and twenty-seven died. 

During this extremity of horrors the stockade was length- 
ened by about six hundred feet, and in September the num- 
ber of the prisoners had been reduced to nearly 10,000. 
Yet the daily death list, instead of decreasing, had propor- 
tionately increased. All the captives were more or less pros- 
trate w T ith disease, and there were eighty deaths daily. This 
unparalleled immolation continued throughout October. 
iVmong the 4,200 prisoners here then, fifty died each day ; 
a monthly average of more than one in three. Thirteen 
was the daily mortality of the 2,000 prisoners here in 
November. 

Then these days of doom were somewhat eased. The 
coming of colder weather ; the lessened number of inmates; 



654 MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 

utilization of vacated places of shelter ; a consequent larger 
proportionate supply of food, lessened the awful martyrdom 
to about five daily. With this condition of affairs the 
winter passed. At the advent of spring the war was 
closed, and the horrible record of the Andersonville Military 
Prison was ended. For the thirteen months that this 
prison-pen was in existence, altogether 44,882 Union sol- 
diers were confined in it. Nearly 14,000 of this number 
perished here, and hundreds, probably thousands more, 
died elsewhere from the effects of their imprisonment. In 
that cemetery lies all that is mortal of 13,706 soldiers of 
the Union who met death at this place; ] 2,780 whose 
names are known, 926 of whose names and homes no 
trace remains. 

"We need not recall at length the causes that made pos- 
sible this record, unequalled though it is in the history of 
like human tragedies. But, for the sake of my purpose, 
there are some further facts we should remember. For 
instance, there was but one bakery for the prison, which, 
had it been worked continuously, night and day, could not 
have supplied fully more than 5,000 men with bread. 
Each prisoner was supposed to have an allowance from the 
authorities of from two to four ounces of bacon, and of from 
four to twelve ounces of corn- bread daily, with now and then 
a half-pint of bean, pea, or sweet-potato soup. Under the 
conditions prevailing, however, this allowance was always 
inconstant and insufficient, and often of the poorest quality. 
Vegetables and fresh meats were practically no part of the 
food-supply. Fuel was a rare luxury : it was obtained in 
large part by digging from the prison ground the roots of 
the pine trees that had been felled. Clothing was soon 
worn out and off. A large part of the time the men were 
more or less unclothed, and were exposed to heat, rain, 
and cold. As no kind of camp sanitation was possible, the 
repulsive and disease-breeding state of the prison may be 
imagined. 

What the hospital, to which at length some of the 
sick were taken, was, may be understood when we learn 
that the first hospital, established in May, prepared 
for 1,000 men, was soon occupied by 4,000. It had 



1S64 WHY REMEMBER ANDEKSONVILLE ? 655 

neither walls nor beds. A roof upon upright stakes was 
about all that made it different from an open field. Beds 
were the ground ; food w T as corn-bread and bacon ; the 
nursing given was but the rudest attention to necessary 
want — often not that. The mortality in the hospital ex- 
ceeded 9,000 ; and also, be it remembered, more than 
4,200 deaths took place in the ditches and pits of the open 
stockade. Altogether the death rate in the number of 
those who were under medical charge here was seventy-six 
per cent. In an ordinary army hospital the percentage is 
usually not more than two and three. These are facts in 
the history of sick humanity, when not stricken by a 
pestilence, that are not to be found repeated elsewhere. They 
appall the imagination. 

Who or what was responsible for this aw 7 ful mortality 
we need not now answer. Judicial investigation at the close 
of the war placed the responsibility for it where it belonged. 
There let it lie. The commandant of the prison died of 
apoplexy in February, 1865. The superintendent was 
executed as a murderer, by sentence of the United States 
courts, in the autumn following. 

***** 

I recall this much of the story of Andersonville chiefly 
that we may appreciate anew the supreme measure of 
patriotic devotion which those men showed to w r hom this 
and the other monuments here stand as memorials. The 
past is past ; the bitterness of memory has gone. The 
United States is to-day a federal union of all the com- 
monwealths that were arrayed against one another half a 
century ago ; the union of the States has been cemented 
by common suffering and death in a recent war waged 
in behalf of civil freedom and independence. Inexorable 
circumstances probably, along with positive inhumanity, 
were back of the facts I have quoted. Even at the time, 
so I read, public feeling in this neighborhood, in a 
measure, revolted from the tragic scenes disclosed in the 
stockade, and some earnest expression of sympathy and 
some protests in the name of humanity are preserved at 
Washington as having been sent from here to the Con- 
federate government by Confederate medical men and 



656 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 



statesmen. I do not revive the past, except as it is at this 
time my duty to make clear and to emphasize anew the 
sublimity of the devotion of the dead whom it is our 
privilege, now and always, to honor. 

Yet, imperative though this duty is, the homage we 
should give these patriot-heroes is not shown wholly by 
remembering their trial and martyrdom. That stands as 
an object lesson to all generations of the fortitude of patriotic 
consecration, " and it must not be lost from among the 
teachings of history. But there are other and equally 
worthy ways of honoring these men who were martyrs 
for their country's sake. 

When we consider the radical meaning and . the issues 
of the civil war, and when we note the development of 
the new era which was instituted for our country through 
their victorious defense of the national Union, we shall 
see that, after all, there is an honor befitting the patriot 
dead fully equal to that which recollects and magnifies 
their devotion. There is the homage that would be 
shown in the giving of one's own person, one's own faith 
and energy, to preserving inviolate the principles for 
which they died, and in perfecting the civic ideal which 
they made of possible realization. That is homage truly 
worthy their deeds and befitting our gratitude. 

***** 

What was the radical meaning of the conflict between 
the North and the South ? It was not, essentially, either 
the preservation of the Union of the States, or the destruc- 
tion of negro slavery. Both these objects were like 
banners in the conflict. They gave it immediate motive 
and direction. The Union was saved, it is true; and true 
it is that millions of negroes were emancipated from 
slavery. But these things were rather occasions than 
causes. The radical cause of the struggle was the theory 
of State Sovereignty then dominant in many of the States 
of the Union : the final cause of the struggle was the 
unification and the centralization of civil power, for all the 
country, in the Federal Government. 

Before the war the United States had no thoroughly 
organized civil life. The States formed rather a 



1864 THE GREAT . ISSUE OF THE CIVIL WAR 657 

confederacy than a federal Union. The National idea 
had then only partial recognition and support. Even 
in some of the States of the North, secession 1 had 
often been proclaimed, by statesmen and political agita- 
tors, the resort for local relief. In the South, secession 
as a State right was a ruling political principle. It was 
this proclaimed right that gave vitality to the protest made 
by the slave States against any Federal regulation of 
slavery within their borders, or of the transference of slaves 
to the territories held as common property by the United 
States. The real issue of the civil war, therefore, was the 
establishment of the supremacy of the Federal Union over 
State Sovereignty. At the close of the war the doctrine of 
State Sovereignty, as opposed to that of dominance of the 
Union, had become impotent. Except as expressly pro- 
vided for in the Federal constitution, it had been destroy- 
ed. The United States had become a coherent Nation. 
Governmental centralization was the radical meaning of 
the great civil war. 

With a definitely centralized and supreme Government, 
the unified United States began for itself a new era. The issues 
of that event have been, beyond all conception, marvellous. 
They are, moreover, of profoundest moment. It is these 
issues that now press upon every lover of his country for 
grave consideration. And it is these issues that now open 
to all of us, opportunity for honoring our " Patriot Dead " 
fully equal to that of building monuments of granite and 
bronze in their memory and of eulogizing their heroism. 
Consequent upon the centralization of our Government, a 
period of national progress, expansion, and prosperity, 
such as had never before been known, became possible. 
Politically, industrially, commercially, socially,— in all the 
relations of a people, — the future opened in ways thitherto 
hardly even imagined. For the first time then, it became 
actually possible for statesmen to initiate, without serious 
opposition, public measures including all parts of the 
country. Capitalists could then plan systems of trans- 
portation that could be perfected regardless of the bound- 
daries of the States. Railway building, to an extent 
thitherto undreamed of, was initiate.!. The western 



658 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 



Territories were rapidly occupied by settlers, and new 
States created. Even the Pacific coast was soon bound 
by rail lines to the ports of the Atlantic. Manufacturers, 
too, could systematize their agencies of production and 
distribution, with reference to all parts of the Union. 
Mills, factories, all sorts of centers of new industry, were 
started that manufacture might meet the needs of the 
rapidly increasing population. Trade became the bene- 
ficiary of a uniform banking system and a common 
currency. 

The feeble one among the world's Governments speedily 
took on the proportions and strength of a giant. The 
growing might of this country, during the past generation, 
has become one of the marvels of history. Were there 
nothing other to say of this new era, we could spend our 
time fittingly in glorifying America's recent progress in 
power and wealth in its industries, commerce, intelligence, 
and wisdom. 

But all has not been a wholesome gain in the country's 
recent development. And, at this exceptionally distinguish- 
ing time, while we are commemorating " the Patriot Dead " 
who made possible our nation's new advances and 
triumphs, it will be well for us to remember the serious 
perils to the nation that have arisen in its progress. These 
perils should cause us earnest thought to-day, and lead us 
into a yet closer allegiance to the sacred cause for which 
these patriots died. 

Power is a name of grand sound and meaning. Power 
is the fact that most marks the gains made by the 
American people under their centralized national Union. 

The American people have become in wealth, for ex- 
ample, the most powerful of all the peoples of the earth. 
Also, in political prestige, they have not only advanced 
with amazing speed into partnership with the world- 
powers, but are making rapid approaches towards leader- 
ship among them. The American Union is to-day to be 
distinguished among nations as bearing, practically, the 
scepter of both financial and political supremacy. 

In this double supremacy lies our greatness, but with it 
also has come portentous peril. All, who have eyes to see, 



1864 PERILOUS RESULTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 659 

must recognize the dangers besetting us. And all, who 
have consciences to obey, must feel that these dangers 
should be met and overcome. 

'Our growing national power, both in finance and 
statehood, holds nothing in itself either undesirable or 
threatening. There is no need to abdicate it in either 
direction. Let it go on from more to more. But there is 
need, when we remember the course of human history, 
for us to listen to the warning — at no place more fitly 
than here — that what rebellion could not do forty years 
ago, self-delusion and wilfulness, in the not distant future, 
can bring to pass ; and there is also need that we and all 
our fellow citizens should earnestly resolve that this 
disaster shall not befall the Nation. 

A vivid forewarning of one of the dangers of which I 
speak exists, ascribed to Abraham Lincoln, himself a 
martyr to the passions engendered by civil rebellion. I 
will not associate it with the Martyred President, since, so 
far as I know, it does not appear among his published 
utterances. But the words have come down to us from 
the time of the civil war, and are prophetic. Their writer, 
whoever he was, said : " I see in the near future a crisis 
approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble 
for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, 
corporations have been enthroned ; an era of corruption in 
high places will follow, and the money power of the 
country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working 
upon the prejudices of the people until all the wealth is 
aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. 
I feel more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever 
before, even in the midst of war." There could not be a 
more intelligent foreboding or a better grounded prophecy 
of danger than lies in these words. 

During the generation that has passed since the words 
were spoken, some excesses of the money power of America 
have almost justified this patriotic solicitude. The control, 
at least, of the country's wealth has been concentered in a 
few hands. The Republic, it is true, is not destroyed. 
But what intelligent man does not know that a genuine 
" government of the people, by the people, and for the 



660 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART TV 



people " in the United States is on the verge of passing 
under the will of an oligarchy in finance, developed 
through the opportunities that were made for it by the 
centralization of civil supremacy in the Federal Union. 
It was this centralization only that opened the field for the 
enormous railway consolidations, " trusts," and " mergers" 
that control the transportation agencies of the country. 
It was this centralization only that gave opportunity for 
the hundreds of combinations that now concentrate the 
products of agriculture, of manufacture, and of the trades 
of the people under arbitrary direction at single centers. 
Yes, the grand issue of the civil war, the centralized 
Federal Union, is the means by which our country's 
speedy and splendid achievements in material prosperity 
were made ; but it also has opened ways to the incoming, 
with these gains, of the gravest dangers. With all our 
wisdom and strength we should seek to prevent their 
marring the true welfare of the Eepublic. 

Nor may we be unmindful of the perils besetting our 
nation in its growth in political power and dominion. If 
any declaration concerning our country should be held 
true, it is this ; — the Eepublic was never intended for 
transformation into an Empire. The war for the Union 
wrought the salvation of a republic ; and it involved the 
emancipation of an enslaved race. The recent war with 
Spain was proclaimed to be a war of humanitarianism. 
That war was carried through by proclamations inspiring 
our people to go to the rescue of the downtrodden ; and to 
secure the upbuilding of a sister Eepublic among the islands 
of the Mexican gulf. Every lover of this country, a 
country made free and independent by the War of the 
Eevolution and established by the Civil War as a nation of 
freemen and helpers of the oppressed of all lands, of 
course hails with delight the expansion of the Union as a 
democracy, either in territory or by the spread of its 
principles throughout the world's peoples. Highest praise 
be given to the people of the United States for every act 
that tends towards these achievements. But let us not 
forget that there are mighty cliques, within the circles of 
the country's industry and trade, seeking control of legisla- 



1864 PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S FOREBODING 661 

tion and administration, determined, for the sake of gain, 
to exercise arbitrary power at home and to extend the 
Nation's political dominion, whatever the cost may be to 
any weak race or people that happens in their way. 

With this danger threatening the body politic, I can not 
do better than quote from the acknowledged writings of our 
martyred President Lincoln some pertinent comments 
and counsel. He spoke with a clear sense of the danger 
that results from such political ambition as impels men 
under its temptations to set aside the fundamental teach- 
ings of the founders of the Kepublic. His words, written 
at the opening of the Nation's struggle with those of its 
citizens who held slaves and supported slavery, could be 
written to-day, with essentially unchanged meaning. 
" It is now no child's play," wrote Mr. Lincoln, "to save 
the principles of Jefferson from total overthrow. The 
principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of 
free society. And yet they are denied and evaded with 
no small show of success. One calls them ' glittering 
generalities.' Another bluntly calls them 6 self-evident 
lies.' And others insidiously argue that they apply to 
* superior races.' These expressions are identical in object 
and effect — that is, the supplanting of the principles of 
free government. They would delight a convocation of 
crowned heads plotting against the people. We must 
repulse them or they will subjugate us. Those who deny 
freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and under 
a just God cannot long retain it. All honor to Jefferson 
who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national 
independence by a single people, introduced into a merely 
revolutionary document an abstract truth, applicable to all 
men and all times, so that to-day and in all days it shall 
be a rebuke and a stumbling block to the very harbingers 
of re-appearing tyranny and oppression." 

Surrounded by these dead ; with consciences fully 
awakened, let us ponder over Lincoln's solemn words. 
Here lie the bodies of heroes in the struggle to perpetuate 
the Federal Union, that was devoted by its founders to 
civil freedom and independence for themselves and for all 
peoples striving to found free States. 



662 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR 



PART IV 



Upon that tablet, heading the list of Rhode Island's 
martyrs, stands the inscription, " Our Honored Dead." Do 
those "words really speak the truth for us and for our 
fellow citizens ? We all honor them, of course, as brave 
men, as valiant soldiers in battle, and as resolutely suffer- 
ing even unto life's end. But do we honor them by 
striving to realize for ourselves the ideal for which they 
died ? Is it our will that monied oligarchies shall not 
dictate National and State legislation ; that they shall not 
monopolize the machinery of industry and control the 
channels of commerce ? Shall Press, Rostrum, and Pulpit 
remain vantage platforms for free thought and speech ? 
Shall all our people have full opportunity to succeed or fail 
as personal worth and ability may determine ? If so then 
these graves do hold the bodies of " Our Honored Dead." 

Also, are our sympathies still with the downtrodden and 
oppressed of all races and nations ? Are we seeking to 
help, and not to hinder, young democracies in their 
struggles towards autonomy? Are we endeavoring to 
uplift all our own citizens into intelligence and self-reliance 
so that they may become fit to co-operate with us in the 
privileges and duties of membership in a free common- 
wealth and prepared to share with us the responsibilities 
of personal liberty ? In a word, is the primal star of Civil 
Freedom and Independence still bright upon the brow of 
Columbia, the personified American Republic? If so, 
then, in the highest sense of the words, these are " Our 
Honored Dead." 

Profoundly do I believe that the truest memorial that 
can stand for the soldier-dead, who lie here and 
throughout our land, is not monuments of granite and 
bronze, but is Citizen-Life devoted to the support and 
triumph of the Nation's Ideal. What we are doing to-day 
should, of course, be done; but a yet better commemora- 
tion for these dead is an enduring monument built, within 
a really free and democratic State, of upright citizenship 
and of institutions that serve and advance the best civic 
virtues. 

There can be no doubt of the coming supremacy 
among nations of the American Union. Whether the 
plea I am making be heeded or not, the United States 



1S64 AMERICA'S COMING GREATNESS AND DUTY 563 



will soon be the overtopping giant among the world- 
powers. This achievement is sure to be made merely by 
the momentum of the forces that are to-day impelling our 
civil and social life. But, this notwithstanding, there can 
also be no doubt that, should our people succumb to the 
dangers now besetting them, the fate hitherto manifest in 
the careers of nations will be repeated for us. Upon 
heedless wealth and political ambition will follow luxury, 
effeminacy, and vice, hand in hand with oppression, 
popular degradation, and civic corruption. Before these, 
if unstopped, the Republic, saved from disunion, must 
perish. Intestine strife,, anarchy, and consequent des- 
potism await the unrestricted usurpations that issue from 
a reckless monied power and a greed for political empire. 

Nor, on the other hand, is there any doubt of the 
coming supremacy of the American Union among nations 
if the plea I am making be sincerely heeded. This 
achievement would be as inevitably secured under a 
real " government of the people, by the people, and for 
the people " as it would be were oligarchies, covetous of 
wealth and political empire, to direct the development 
of the Republic. Indeed, should the attempts now 
being made to establish exclusive monopolies of the in- 
dustrial and commercial instrumentalities of the country 
be checked and thwarted, and should our people maintain 
their political heritage inviolate, future historians would not 
only be able to eulogize the greatness of the United States, 
but, better still, its grandeur. Also, they could safely pro- 
phesy their increase so long as popular faith and loyalty 
should endure. 

Which course shall our people take ? There should be 
no hesitation over the answer. On this sacred ground, 
urged by all the memories that throng into speech, seems 
to come the warning : " Ye build a memorial of granite and 
bronze to your honored dead. This is well. But unless 
your memorial is also the sign of a memorial made of the 
purposes and deeds of living men inspired by the ideal of 
the State for which these heroes gave their lives, ye have, 
for the better part, raised this monument in vain." 



664 MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAK PAET IV 



The legend upon Ehode Island's seal of State, which 
there stands as the frontlet upon our monument, is " Hope." 
Let this legend inspire us to-day. I have spoken of grave 
perils besetting the Eepublic. It was my duty to speak of 
them, because they exist and because they are here fittingly 
a subject of speech. That they give reason for present 
solicitude, much serious public discussion makes clear ; and 
I am only voicing the deliberate proclamations of both the 
great political parties that to-day are seeking the support 
of popular suffrage. In the platforms of both these parties 
the dangers of which I speak areclearly recognized. One 
party strongly condemns " all conspiracies and combina- 
tions to restrict business, to create monopolies, to limit 
production, or to control prices/' It promises " to restrain 
and to prevent such abuses, and to preserve the rights of 
competition to all who are engaged in industry and com- 
merce." It also declares " that the mission of America is 
to assure independence and self-government to Cuba, and 
to confer on all the rescued peoples of conquered Spanish 
territory, the blessings of liberty and civilization." The 
other great party asserts that " private monopolies are in- 
defensible and intolerable — a robber of both producer and 
consumer. ,, And it brands " temptation towards imperial 
power as a peril involving the very existence of our free 
institutions/ ' I am making, therefore, no ungrounded, or 
partisan, appeal. And every true child of the patriot sires 
of a century ago, the founders of our Republic, and of their 
heroic sons, the preservers of the Union, in his heart of hearts 
must endorse this appeal. Surely the American people 
will, in the end, resist successfully the dangers that now 
beset them. So, then, notwithstanding the portentous 
gravity of the perils gathering about our national life, let 
our forecast here be that of " Hope " ; and, while we hope, 
let us highly resolve to do well our part, that the foes threat- 
ening the Republic's life shall be destroyed. 

Pledged, then, to the building of the grander monu- 
ment of living patriotic purpose and deed, we have dedi- 
cated this memorial of granite and bronze. Let this monu- 
ment ever stand as witness of our grateful homage to our 
" Patriot Heroes "•; and let it be a token also of our renewed 



1809-65 IN MEMORIAM : ABRAHAM LINCOLN 965 

fidelity, as citizens of the Eepublic, to carrying forward and 
perfecting the work for which these heroes " gave the last 
full measure of devotion." If faithfulness shall follow our 
pledge, then these " Honored Dead " will have become truly 
honored, and their supreme sacrifice will not have been 
made in vain. 



VIII. 

In 1904, February 13th, I delivered an address, before a 
joint session of the Ehode Island Senate and House of 
Representatives, on " Abraham Lincoln." Five years later 
I rewrote the address, by request, for a special issue of the 
Christian Register, of Boston, in celebration of the hund- 
redth year since Lincoln's birth. The address was 
published under the heading,— 

THE LINCOLN OF CENTENNIAL MEMOEY. 

Judgment of the personality of the leader in a great era 
in human affairs can be assured only with the lapse of 
time. In the midst of the turmoil of the events in which 
he is actor, an adequate, or generally accepted, estimate of 
the man is impossible. With the hundredth year after 
his birth, however, and a half century since his death, 
both contemporary. praise and blame have long lost force. 
Confused events and conflicting opinions appear in their 
right relations, and, in all probability the full truth about 
him has been discerned and established. 

The American people are now celebrating the first cen- 
tennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, and, by unchal- 
lenged consent now, they are honoring the memory of one 
of the greatest, wisest, and best of the benefactors of 
mankind. 

In the most momentous crisis that has befallen the 
United States of America, Lincoln was twice called to be 
the Nation's president. During his first term of office, he 
was leader in carrying through the stupendous task of 
saving the Federal Union from dissolution. At the begin- 
ning of his second term, when he was initiating plans for 



666 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR 



PART IV 



a beneficent government of the conquered South, he was 
assassinated. 

That tragic death alone would have made Lincoln's 
memory sacred to his fellow countrymen. He represented 
in his own person the people's loyalty and patriotism. The 
traitor's bullet was aimed more at the Nation than at him. 
The gratitude of the Nation, consequently, enshrined him 
and has perpetuated his memory. 

But it was not Lincoln's vicarious work and death that 
gave to his name the supreme eminence it has received, 
— a place among " the few, the immortal names," in 
human history. His position as official leader through his 
country's most critical years and his sacrificial death while 
serving his country in a time of mortal peril, made him 
ever memorable to a grateful people. But these things did 
not exalt him to the unique pre-eminence he now holds. 

To many persons living to-day, who were alive on that 
fateful April morning in 1865, and heard the news of the 
awful deed of the night before in Ford's Theatre, probably 
no recollection is more vivid than of the scenes they passed 
through then. News of the violent death of one inti- 
mately close to one's own life could hardly have been more 
of a shock or more overpowering with grief than the dread- 
ful message, " The President is dead — murdered." The 
tragedy turned the whole North, just then jubilant over 
the surrender of the Confederate armies and the close of 
the war, into a land of sorrow. 

The writer of this memorial was a passenger on a 
crowded ferry-boat crossing the Ohio river that morn- 
ing, and heard of the 'assassination as the boat was 
leaving the shore. " The President is dead — mur- 
dered." That was the bare fact. But why, hearing that, 
should scores of men on the boat, who had never met or 
even seen Lincoln, suddenly turn pale and tremble — as 
they did then — or break down with weeping ? Why 
should many of them, strangers to one another, stand 
with clasped hands, speechless under a common grief? 
Throughout the Northern States countless like scenes were 
witnessed that day. They are not to be accounted for 
because the death of Lincoln carried with it a sense of 



1809-65 THE LINCOLN OF CENTENNIAL MEMORY 667 



critical loss to the Nation ; not even that it aroused painful 
regret that the life of a noble man and of a wise leader of 
the country had been cut off within a few days after his 
crowning work had been done. 

In fact, the passing of the President was felt by 
millions of his fellow citizens as, more than all 
else, a personal bereavement. Lincoln was honored as 
the head of the Nation. Multitudes followed him as 
their trusted guide and guard. He was listened to 
by hosts as their wise counsellor. He was proudly re- 
garded as the successful commander-in-chief of the armies 
and fleets defending the Union. But back of all these 
things, making them of yet deeper value to the imperilled 
people, was their confidence that he was their friend and 
comrade. During the forty-four years that have passed 
since Lincoln's death, the continuing millions who loved him 
then have cherished his memory with increasing affection ; 
and the generations born after his death received, and are 
treasuring, the story of his life and work as a sacred herit- 
age. The Lincoln of Centennial Memory, then, is the 
victorious leader of his country in its day of gravest danger ; 
the consummate statesman and master of men, carrying 
through, to a benevolent peace, the greatest civil war in 
the history of mankind ; yet, notably also, as far as hand 
or voice could reach from his position as Chief Officer of the 
Government, the genuinely personal friend of every needy 
man and woman,— in fact, a fellow citizen with all the 
people. 

With this judgment the first centenary of the birth of 
Abraham Lincoln comes to the people of America. It 
celebrates the marvellous achievements of the Martyred 
President as the Nation's official head and the executive of 
the people's will, culminating in the yet more wonderful 
story of the outreach of his heart. 

Lincoln, though born in the humblest range of America's 
democratic social order, rose at the maturing of our great 
political crisis to leadership over the Nation. Eegarded 
merely as the chief official of the Eepublic, he displayed, in 
his exalted station, the finest qualities of political judgment 



668 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAK PABT IV 



and skill. From the beginning, public confidence in him 
was steadily increased by reason of his prudent counsel 
and masterly shrewdness in dealing with the perplexing 
situations arising because of the attempted separation of 
the slave States from the Federal Union. Then was en- 
gendered a widespread recognition of his extraordinary 
sagacity in guiding the people of the North through the 
perils besetting them from the varying fortunes of the 
Rebellion. Later it was perceived how wise was his dis- 
cernment, and fearless his grasp of the opportune moment 
for emancipating four millions of slaves. And, at the end, 
the Nation was impressed with the grandeur of his charac- 
ter, in the conservatism he displayed, under an almost 
uncontrolled possession of power, in directing the forces at 
his command towards the restoration of peace, together 
with the dominion of constitutional authority, throughout 
the States that had failed in their insurrection. Looked at 
as the official head of the American Union, Lincoln great- 
ly surprised the people by steadily rising with his oppor- 
tunities ; by showing himself equal to the unexpected 
emergencies continuously confronting him; and by being 
marked with a notable directness and sincerity of aim in 
fulfilling all duty as it was disclosed. As the President, he 
was pre-eminently both the man for the hour and the 
clear-seeing pioneer needed for the days that were to come. 

But, in celebrating the personality of Lincoln as a whole, 
we should recollect, to begin with, that he achieved the 
rare distinction, as President of a great nation, of retaining, 
and of using helpfully, too, the homely qualities of the life 
from which he had been chosen. Even clothed with the 
highest official dignity, and bearing its conventionalities 
worthily where necessary, he never lost touch with the 
wholesome though uncultured ways of the frontier people 
of the West. As a rule, his mode of living was of a wholly 
natural simplicity. 

Some personal reminiscences will help to illustrate this 
fact. It was my privilege as a boy to see, and many 
times to meet with, the President. I remember well meet- 
ing him often in his walks across the grounds about the 
White House, nearly always towards the War Department, 



1809-65 SOME PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS 



669 



I was at that department almost daily in the midwinter of 
1861-62. The President's appearance was noticeable to 
me chiefly because of his unusual stature and ungainly 
stride. His dress was seemingly a matter of indifference 
to him ; — he was even negligent of it. What he had been 
as the carelessly garbed lawyer in Illinois, he continued, 
for the most part, to be when surrounded by the more 
formal and exacting social conditions in Washington City. 
But I remember that he had habitually a smile and a 
cheery greeting for those who approached him in the ear- 
lier years of his office. This was his manner towards 
every one who did not tax him with matters that required 
grave consideration. 

At the Xew T Year's Eeception in the White House in 
1S62, I stood for some time near him, and all the 
while he was on the alert to pass pleasant words with 
those who came to him, acquaintance or stranger. 
What, being a boy, interested me most then was his 
awkward attitude and movements in an ill-fitting suit 
of clothes that seemed merely hung upon him. His 
conventional white kid gloves were over-big and were 
crumpled in ridiculous folds on hands that also seemed 
over-large. 

At another time I was fastidious enough to complain 
to my mother that Mrs. Lincoln " could not care much 
for the president," because, at the church that morn- 
ing, I had seen Mr. Lincoln escort her to their carriage, 
wearing an overcoat on which a button was wanting, and, 
in the button's place, a bunch of dangling threads. 

Peculiarly characteristic of the man was his part in an in- 
cident happening in the Assistant War Secretary's office one 
December afternoon. Gen. MacDowell stood in the centre 
of the room examining a new musket bayonet. Gen. B. F. 
Butler, much to my inconvenience since I sat beside him, 
occupied nearly the whole of a sofa near the doorw T ay. 
"JimLane/' of Kansas, was nervously pacing the floor 
next to Secretary Cameron's apartment. Suddenly the 
corridor door was opened and the President strode 
into the room, smiling and bowing to the persons at 
each side. His tall hat was still on his head, his arms 



670 



0 

MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR PART IV 



were outstretched before him. Only a few long steps 
carried him across the room to the open fireplace, in 
which a glowing bed of coals lay. Then*, all at once, he 
collapsed into a crouching position, and sat, as if between 
his heels, his knees projecting almost, if not quite, above 
his head. Twisting and waving his big hands over the 
fire, he looked backward, and began some characteristic 
badinage, greeting Gen. MacDowell with a trifling joke 
over the coldness of the morning. Cheery remarks to 
others followed, In a few moments his whole demean- 
or changed. He arose quickly and with dignified manner 
turned to engage Senator Lane in serious talk. He soon 
disappeared within Mr. Cameron's private office. 

On horseback the President was anything but an impres- 
sive object. In fact, when seen at a distance, he was 
never a figure to be admired or to inspire reverence. 

However, at these physical limitations, detraction of Lin- 
coln's appearance must cease. Ungainly in figure and move- 
ment though he was, the impression of these defects never 
remained with those who were once brought into personal 
contact or conversation with him. That we may begin to 
understand the true personality of Abraham Lincoln, his 
bodily gaucherie must be accepted and allowed to pass out 
of notice, just as it almost always did with those who had 
once met him face to face and come to know him for what 
he was in mind and heart. Our interest to-day is with the 
man within the ungainly body ; the man whose personality 
drew its essential vitality from a primitive simplicity that 
never failed him ; from a character that was unqualifiedly 
sincere, that more than all else in word and deed rested 
upon the finest intellectual and spiritual realities. 

Approaching now more closely Lincoln's personality, 
we learn that competent judges of his career soon knew, 
and that the world to-day acknowledges, him to have been 
a very wise man. In dealing with the men and events 
which, in bewildering complexity, engrossed his adminis- 
tration of office, this quality soon became noticeable. He 
had come to understand, over a wide range, the manifold 
phases of human nature. He penetrated deeply — he seemed 



1809-65 Lincoln's superior characteristics 671 

even to divine, -^-the motives of the many who sought him 
for his endorsement or co-operation. His judgments stand 
upon record exceptionally marked with comprehension 
and justice. He appears to have had in purpose no lower 
aim than to see what was true, or to do other than what, 
under the circumstances affecting any matter, would be 
best. His public service was so far beyond deceit or toler- 
ation of duplicity that, for the time being, he was not 
seldom misunderstood. As a rule, however, his demand 
for truth, and his search always for what was wisest to do, 
was a mightily effective power, directing him successfully 
through vitally momentous duties. In conducting what 
were, not infrequently, exceedingly delicate relations with 
certain members of his Cabinet ; in conferring with many 
contrary-minded leading citizens of different parts of the 
country ; in getting hold of and securing the unfailing sup- 
port of the tumultuous Congress that was necessary to 
enable him to carry on the war ; in arousing and preserv- 
ing the good will of some foreign diplomats who were con- 
stantly bringing problems to him full of portent ; and, 
more than all else, in winning and retaining through four 
trying years the deepening allegiance of the great public ; — 
in all probability, nothing less than the essential sincerity 
of Lincoln's mind and his supreme wisdom while seeking 
to know and to do only what was right and best kept him 
from disastrous failure. His integrity and far seeing wis- 
dom w r ere recognized and trusted by multitudes all along 
his administration of the Presidency ; but after his death, 
especially when full publicity was given to his career, the 
whole Nation learned that it had never honored as its 
leader a wiser man, or one more just, than Abraham Lin- 
coln. 

Then we may not forget in our memorial the growing 
wonder and admiration that followed the publication of 
Lincoln's state papers, his voluminous correspondence and 
his public addresses. The astonishing revelation was 
made that a man rising directly from among the common 
people, out of social obscurity and, presumably, out of an un- 
lettered poverty, should have been the master of a technical 
knowledge in statecraft, and the possessor of a facile and 



672 



MEMOBIALS OF THE CIVIL WAE PABT IV 



most apt skill in literary expression, seldom found among 
men especially trained in the science and the art of gov- 
ernment and of letters. Some of the President's writings and 
many of his orations, — especially those given in the epoch- 
making debate he had with Stephen A. Douglas in Illinois, 
in 1858, — are among the acknowledged masterpieces of 
English literature. Great did the marvel grow over the 
question where that humble child of toil of the backwoods 
of Kentucky and of the Indiana prairies could have found 
the literary material and the scholarly ability displayed in 
his later years. His wide-reaching and diversified know- 
ledge ; his most pat and illuminating mother- wit, humor 
and pathos ; and the surpassing forms with which he gave 
it all expression, receive to-day the admiring study of fully 
equipped statesmen and writers. It was with true insight 
into what would be the world's established judgment that 
Edward Everett at Gettysburg is reported to have said to 
Mr. Lincoln, when he had closed his tribute to the dead 
of the Nation's battlefields, " Mr. President, these words of 
yours will live long after the oration I have delivered here 
shall have been forgotten." 

This fine acknowledgment by the renowned orator of 
the day at Gettysburg leads us to the inmost shrine of the 
Century's Memorial of Lincoln. The American people, 
with grateful and reverential pride, have long consecrated 
in memory the nation's first Martyr President — the leader 
of the hosts who saved the United States from the ruin 
that their disunion would have wrought. They now know 
him to have been one of the greatest and wisest of the 
world's great and wise men ; as having received thereby a 
sacred immortality in human history. But, were our 
estimate of the Lincoln of Centennial Memory to close 
here, it would fail in not having celebrated that which is * 
really of most value concerning him. The supreme quali- 
ties of his character, the moral factors through which his 
personality as a whole became unique, may not be for- 
gotten. 

Ever memorable is Lincoln's tenderness of nature, his 
surpassing gentleness and sympathy. He was the nation's 
" Great Heart." Through his work as the Government's ex- 



1-09-65 



Lincoln's main personal trait 



673 



ecutive and the country's President, his instinctive partner- 
ship with those who were forced to bear pain or bereave- 
ment ; his habitual magnanimity towards those who were 
at fault through ignorance or weakness ; his persistent 
search for some means by which he might stop the terrible 
struggle in the Nation and heal its wounds, — these things 
were so distinctive of the daily life of the President that, as 
the years passed, multitudes became devoted to him, 
They had known him as their personal friend. It is 
doubtless true that Lincoln, though holding the supreme 
office of the Nation, was more often in personal contact 
with the common people, was more involved as friend 
and helper in intimate relations with lowly men 
and women, was more a ministering man among 
men, than any Chief of our Government before or after 
him. A host of soldiers and sailors in camp and in hos- 
pital ; widows and orphans by the thousand upon thousand ; 
many of them because of gratitude for immediate help 
given, loved him. The millions of slaves, whose fetters 
he had broken, thought of him as their deliverer sent from 
heaven, and were read}' to worship him. Indeed, count- 
less victims of the inhumanities of the Civil War, learning 
of the personal sacrifices that the President was daily 
making for their companions in suffering, regarded him 
with loving trust, confident that he would help them if he 
but knew of their needs. Nothing is truer of Lincoln 
than that he was, indeed, always ready as the willing friend; 
at times considered by those around him as a friend too will- 
ing* to give himself in service to those who suffered because 
of the Nation's struggle. 

It is well known, too, that, while he was bear- 
ing the burden of his country's perils, he would not 
allow any one to be his personal antagonist, if kindness 
or generous explanation could prevent. He sought, too, 
by magnanimous appeals and by any concession allowable 
within the limits of justice and patriotic fidelity, to win 
the friendship of even the foes of the Union. One of the 
finest yet most pathetic records of American history is the 
large-minded and big-hearted plans he was formulating 
at the time of his murder for the restoration, to civil 



674 



MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAB PABT IV 



dignity and to general prosperity, of the conquered States 
of the Confederacy. The rebellious South lost its best 
friend when Booth's bullet took Lincoln's magnanimous 
life. To-day the people of the now happily reunited 
States accept without question, and cherish with grateful 
affection, the President's memorable and, as it happened, 
his farewell declaration that in his great office he had done 
his stern duty, " with malice towards none; with charity 
for all ; and with firmness in the right as God gives- us to 
see the right ; to finish the work we are in ; to bind up the 
nation's wounds ; to do all which may achieve and cherish 
a just and lasting peace among ourselves. 5 ' 

Equally memorable and fitting as companion quality with 
Lincoln's tenderness and magnanimity was his optimistic 
courage, springing evidently from a profound religious 
trust in the triumph of his country's cause. And never 
was this reliance more firm in him than in the darkest 
hours that tried men's souls in the awful years of the 
conflict waged between the States of the South and of the 
North. Some men are yet alive who saw the President's 
faith and courage, when certain of his counsellors, who 
had been stout-hearted supporters of the Union, faltered 
and were ready to fail. There were, at times, members 
of the Cabinet and of the Congress, leaders of public 
opinion, editors of great newspapers, who were ready to 
urge the President to declare a truce so that there might 
be a discussion with representatives of the Confederacy 
•over a possible compromise that would bring the hostilities 
to a close. Nevertheless, though the burdens of the war 
lay more heavily upon Lincoln than upon any other man, 
and he knew of the threatening dangers better than any one 
else, he never failed of his faith and hope. Rather did he 
again and again strengthen those who were faint of heart. 

Under the transfiguration wrought by these factors of 
moial grandeur it is not to be wondered at, then, that the 
Lincoln of Centennial Memory appears standing at the 
very front among the great men of human history. 
Indeed, the name of "Washington is the only American 
name that now can be ranged alongside that of Lincoln, 
as recipient of the nation's supreme reverence and love. 



1S09-65 



LINCOLN AS LEADER TO-DAY 



675 



It would, however, be celebrating the Lincoln Centenary 
almost in vain were the American people to be content 
with merely remembering and interpreting the grandeur 
of his personality. Leadership implies following : af- 
fectionate homage involves longing to gain likness to the 
one revered. Peace has its conflicts no less than war ; 
and the same principless that made Lincoln the Saviour 
of the Republic remain as law for the lite of every citizen 
of the Eepublic he saved, The Lincoln of Centennial 
Memory is, then, not only a sublime historic heritage, but 
should be a mighty present inspiration, animating the 
American, people, now, to make beautiful and prosperous 
in the ways of peace that government of the people by 
the people, for the people " for whose preservation he 
" gave the last full measure of devotion." 



V 

ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



Oh ! were I blind, I still should know 
The splendid sun were shining : 

His warmth would, through the unseen glow, 
Fill eyes for vision pining. 

And were I deaf, I still should feel 

Elysian music round me : 
In soundless ears would yet be real 

The thrill that once had found me. 

So, were I dumb, 'twould matter not 
That words could ne'er be spoken : 

For soul to soul can voice its thought 
Though silence be unbroken. 

" Compensation." 

The Independent, New York. 
1902. 



PART FIVE 

SOME ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



I 

THE GENIUS AND WORK OF 
ROBERT BURNS. 



A peasant born ; a peasant reared ; a writer of songs 
and other verse ; for a few months a distinguished guest 
in the social circles of the capital city of his country ; then 
an unsuccessful farmer and the tenant of a humble office 
in the nation's civil service ; the man struggling all the 
while with disastrous impulses and untoward circum- 
stances, to become their victim at last at the age of only 
thirty seven ; — such in main outline is the record of the 
outward career of Robert Burns. A brief, lowly and 
lamentable career, indeed ! Yet, though more than a 
hundred years have passed since the body of Burns 
was laid away in the earth, his name not only remains 
in the memory of the people of his native land, but it 
has become endeared there above the name of any of his 
contemporaries. And more ; throughout the English speak- 
ing world and beyond, it is now enshrined in the love of 
millions of human kind. I say, 11 endeared " to the people of 
Scotland and to millions of mankind, for in the world's 
affections the name of Burns is cherished. Scotland did 
not know while Burns was alive, — in fact, such is the irony 
of fate, Scotland could not then know, — the gift which had 
enriched her in the genius of the Ayrshire ploughman. 
But, with the death of Burns, a sense of national bereave- 
ment awoke throughout the land. Gratitude and love for 
the rarely endowed life, — alas, too late to help the man 
himself,— were aroused, and eulogists vied with one 
another in sounding the dead poet's praise. But why 



680 



ESSAYS IN LITEEATUEE 



PAET V 



should Burns' countrymen, and why should multitudes of 
mankind enshrine the memory of this humble, tragic life, 
and exalt it with increasing worth as the years pass? 

Robert Burns was a singer, I reply, and 

His was the music to whose tone, 

The common pulse of man keeps time, 

In cot or castle's mirth or moan, 
In cold or sunny clime :— - 

his work was a surpassing return to his longing, 

Gie me ae spark o' Nature's fire ? 

Then, though I drudge through dub and mire 

At pleugh or cart, 
My Muse though hamely in attire, 

May touch the heart. 

There is no need, then, for me to bespeak your interest in 
the theme I bring. I assume that you are ready to 
welcome an attempt to interpret anew this man, to whom 
your life and mine, to whom a nation's civil, social, and 
even religious emancipation and progress owe so much ; 
to whom, indeed, human life, in the profound experiences 
of joy and sorrow, hope and fear, is deeply indebted. 

I invite you to a study of The Genius and Work of 
Robert Burns. 

Wherein lay that peculiar power by which Burns 
became pre-eminent among his kind ? The answer to the 
question is manifold. But, to begin with, among the main 
sources of that power, I place intensity of emotion. The 
whole being of Robert Burns was dominated by feeling. 
The man went through his brief career aflame. In every- 
thing he did he was passionate. In joy, he was excited 
almost beyond limit ; in grief or despondency, he was 
depressed almost beyond endurance. His praise was 
enthusiasm, his blame was denunciation. When but 
fourteen years old, the love passion, which, more than 
any other emotion, shaped his intellectual future, was 
aroused. He could not tell then, he wrote in after years, 
why his " heart-strings thrilled like an Eolian harp," or 
why his " pulse beat such a furious rattan " in the pre- 
sence of the " bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass." With the 
awakening of this passion, the song impulse was set free 



1893 ELEMENTS IN THE GENIUS OF BUBNS 031 



and mastered him. "With me began love and poetry," 
he wrote. Their first product was his lyric, beginning — 

Oh, once I loved a bonny lass. 
Aye, and I love her still. 

"I composed it," he said, "in a wild enthusiasm of 
passion, and to this hour I never reeollect it, but my heart 
melts, my blood sallies at the remembrance/' 

Observe, too, the intensity with which, even at this early 
age, he fed his intellectual life. He had access to but few 
books ; these he absorbed. Among them was a " Select Col- 
lection of English Songs," which he made his constant com- 
panion. " I pored over them, driving my cart, or walking to 
labour, song by song, verse by verse." His social pleasures 
were marked by a like intensity. " A constitutional me- 
lancholy/' and " a strong appetite for sociability," led him 
to shun solitude. And when he happened, in his nine- 
teenth year, to be placed at school in a sea-port town far 
from home, he fell in with some men under whose in- 
fluence he plunged into the " swaggering riot and roaring 
dissipation," of the place. Then he learned " to fill a 
glass," a knowledge which, as all know T , in the end wrought 
his pathetic ruin. His school-days were brought to a 
sudden close by a new outburst of passion in that heart of 
his which he described as always " completely tinder." 
" It was in vain to think of doing any more good at 
school," he wrote. " The remaining week I staid, I did 
nothing but craze the faculties of my soul " about the 
modest and innocent girl who had " sent me off at a 
tangent from the sphere of my studies." The ebullition 
of this passion subsided with the writing of his second 
song ; his lament : — 

I dreamed I lay where Sowers were springing. 

For years thereafter Burns gave himself, in large meas- 
ure, to song writing. H Vive V amour et vive la bagatelle " 
was his guiding principle then. " My passions, when 
once lighted up," he declared, " raged like so many devils 
till they got vent in rhyme," 11 To every pretty face in 
Tarbolton," said his brother, " he composed a song ;" and 
when he was moved by the lyrical passion " the agitations 



682 



ESSAYS IN LITEEATUEE 



PAET V 



of his mind and body exceeded anything of the kind I ever 
saw in real life." 

With this extravagance of emotion our poet entered 
upon manhood, thence to endure as a vessel launched 
upon stormy seas. He could do nothing moderately ; 
he was never mentally at rest. Having just entered 
upon manhood he talked of the " pangs of disappoint- 
ment," of the " stings of pride." After three years of luck- 
less farming, an attempt to bind himself down to the 
"wise man's" life failed, and, to repeat his own words, 
" I returned like the sow that was washed to her wallow- 
ing in the mire ! " Recall such intense expressions of 
Burns' emotion as these ; " Even in the hour of social 
mirth my gaiety is the madness of an intoxicated criminal 
under the hands of the executioner." He described him- 
self as " the sport, the miserable victim of rebellious pride, 
hypochondriac imagination, agonizing sensibility, and Bed- 
lam passions." Under the goad of his excessive feeling he 
often cried out with such words as : " My poor distracted 
mind is so torn, so jaded, so racked and bedevilled with the 
task of the superlatively damned, to make one guinea do 
the business of three, that I detest, abbor, and swoon at the 
very word business." And once he wrote a letter to a 
friend, beginning : " I write you from the regions of hell, 
amid the horrors of the damned. An internal tormentor, 
his name I think is Recollection, with a whip of scorpions, 
forbids peace or rest to approach me, and keeps anguish 
eternally awake." 

Then what a picture, though in brighter colors, of 
this emotion-possessed soul, is given in Mrs. Burns' 
story of the way in which the famous poem, Tarn 
o'Shanter, came into the immortality of letters ! She 
found her husband " crooning to himsel," on the river 
bank. Watching him, her attention was attracted by his 
wild gesticulations ; he " was agonized with an ungovern- 
able access of joy. He was reciting very loud and with 
tears rolling down his cheeks." "I wish ye had seen 
him," said his wife, " he was in such extacy that the tears 
were happing down his cheeks." The fact is that, to 
Robert Burns, agony or rapture was as distinctively the 



1893 ELEMENTS IN THE GENIUS OF BURNS 680 

quality of his emotional life as common pleasure or pain is 
of the feelings of ordinary men. By this intensity of 
emotion, chiefly, was it, that the career of Burns was so 
full of tragic pathos ; yet to this very emotional excess is it 
that the world is indebted for much that makes Burns one 
•of its greatest benefactors. Kemember the touching appeal 
in the Bard's Epitaph, an epitaph meant for his own 
tomb : — 

Is there a man, whose judgment clear, 
Can others teach the course to steer, 
Yet runs himself life's mad career, 

Wild as the wave ? 
Here pause, and through the starting tear, 

Survey this grave. 

But scarcely more important in a study of the genius of 
Burns, is the recognition of a tyranny of feeling, than of 
an overmastering self-assertion. Burns' self-consciousness 
was acute and always upon the alert. When it was im- 
pelled by excited feeling it was imperative and irresistible. 
Burns was an instinctive believer in each man's right to 
himself; and, in consequence, he was hostile to social class 
distinctions ; he hated the privilege and power associated 
with birth. The effect of this peculiarity of his nature was 
a concentration of thought and feeling upon personal re- 
lations. He could not deal with anything apart from its 
bearings upon himself. The world moved around him and 
those who were in personal connection with him. He 
was proud, and sensitive to an extreme degree ; ambitious 
of leadership ; impatient and wretched over serious opposi- 
tion or defeat. Even as a child he could not bear to be 
surpassed by his fellows. He was Caesar or no one, among 
them. In his boyish love-making, a repulse stung him to 
the depths. Woe betide the playmate who wounded his 
self-love ! His ambition to shine, he says, drove him into 
the midst of the theological tea-pot tempest raging in the 
town where he spent his later youth. He became a vigo- 
rous participant in the " Auld and New Licht " controversy, 
not because he felt obliged to defend any great principle 
involved in it ; but chiefly from an impetuous love of 
personal notoriety. " The more they talk, I'm known the 
better," is part of a stanza in one of his noted youthful 



684 ESSAYS IN LITERATURE PART V 



poems. Ambitious self-assertion, a desire to outshine 
among his associates, afford sufficient explanation for 
the publication of most of the cutting satire, the 
stinging ridicule, the brightest wit, of the well known 
controversial poems which appeared during his years at 
Mossgiel. 

When Prof. Dugald Stewart, years later, met Eobert 
Burns, " Burns," he said " was accustomed to give law in 
the circle of his ordinary acquaintance ; and his dread of 
anything approaching to meanness or servility rendered his 
manner somewhat decided and hard." We are told that the 
pride of Burns was such, when he spentthe one triumphant 
year of his life in Edinburgh, that he never met people of 
a superior class socially, towards whom he was not 
on a suspicious watch, until they had shown themselves 
genuinely sympathetic with him as a man, and had re- 
cognized him as their equal. To him, rank and fortune 
were but as "the guinea's stamp ; " a man himself was the 
gold. 

What a delicious piece of humor, and yet how dom- 
inated by self-assertion, sensitive personal conceit and 
jealousy, are his verses, describing a dinner with Lord 
Daer, who happened to be a guest at Prof. Stewart's, when 
Burns, at the budding of his reputation, was invited from 
his Mossgiel, farm to dine with the scholar:— 

This wot ye all whom it concerns, 
I, Rhyiner Eobin, alias Burns, 

October twenty-third, 
A ne'er»to-be-forgotten day ! 
Sae far I clambered up the brae 

I dinnered wi' a lord. 

But wi' a lord !— stand out, my shin ; 
A lord, — a peer, — an Earl's, son ! 

Up higher yet, my bonnet ! 
And sic a lord ! lang Scotch ells twa, 
Our peerage he o'erlooks them a', 

As I look o'er my sennet. 

Then, with a burlesque description of his own awkward- 
ness, "stumpin' on his ploughman's shanks M into the 
learned professor's parlor, and there " sheltered in a 



1883 , CHARACTERISTIC PERSONAL QUALITIES 



685 



iicok " stealing looks of " portentous omen " at bis lord- 
ship, be continued bis " lines," 

I watched the symptoms o' the great, 
The gentle pride, the lordly state, 

The arrogant assuming; 
The feint a pride, nae pride had he, 
Xor sauce, nor state that I could see 

Mair than an honest ploughman. 

In an autobiographic letter written afterwards concerning 
his first volume of poems, which was published at about 
the time of this dinner " wi 1 a lord," Bums drew a telling 
picture of himself, — " Poor unknown as I then was, I had 
pretty nearly as high an idea of myself and of my works as 

I have at this moment." " To know myself had been all 
along my constant study, I weighed myself alone. I 
balanced myself with others. I studied assiduously nature's 
design in my formation. I was pretty confident my 
poems would meet with some applause." The expected 
applause came, and opened the way for him to the higher 
social life of Edinburgh, where he became for a season 

II the lion of the town." But the self-assertive, self-con- 
scious quality of Burns' nature ill-fitted him for this new ex- 
perience. It forced him to so decided a display of personal 
independence that it embittered what might have been help- 
ful pleasures. " In the whole strain of his bearing," says his 
biographer, Lockhart, u he showed his belief, that in the 
society of the most eminent men of his nation, he was 
where he was entitled to be, hardly deigning to flatter 
them by exhibiting a symptom of being flattered." From 
glimpses we get of the poet's inner life at the time, we 
learn that while " he was bearing himself thus manfully 
to outward appearance, he was scrutinizing himself and 
others with a morbid sensitiveness." One of his biograph- 
ers says he was " forever harping on independence." Mr 
Carlyle named this " a barren and unfruitful pride." 

Indeed, were I giving a biography of Robert Burns in- 
stead of gathering illustrations of qualities fundamental in his 
nature, I should have a story to tell of his Edinburgh ex- 
perience, of morbid internal weakness and suffering of the 
saddest kind. He wrote of Lord Glencaim : — 



686 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



The bridegroom may forget the bride 

Was made his wife yestreen; 
The monarch may forget the crown 

That on his head an hour has been ; 
The mother may forget the child 

That smiles sae sweetly on her knee; 
But I'll remember thee, Glencairn, 

And a' that thou hast done for me ! 

Yet, of this same benefactor, his morbid self-assertiveness 
led him to write from Edinburgh : " The noble Glen- 
cairn has wounded me to the soul here. He showed so 
much attention, engrossing attention, one day to the only 
blockhead at table, (the whole company consisted of his 
lordship, dunderpate, and myself), that I was within half- 
a-point of throwing down my gage of contemptuous de- 
fiance." 

Moreover, the desire of Burns to lead, his suspicion 
of patronage, his rebellion against apparent condescen- 
sion, sent him more frequently to the middle-class 
clubs and gatherings of Edinburgh, than to the socially 
superior circles there. Professor Shairp tell us, " With 
open arms the clubs welcomed the poet to their festivals, 
each man proud to think he was carousing with Bobbie 
Burns.' ' There, his self-consciousness was in no danger 
of being wounded. Suspicion might sleep. He was 
acknowledged leader. Were it not so closely connected 
with the tragic years which befell our poet after he had 
turned his back upon the society of the Capita], the fact 
would be comical, that he " bought a pocket copy of Mil- 
ton's epic, that he might study the character of Satan, as 
the great exemplar of " intrepid unyielding independence." 
But I need not illustrate further this second quality of 
Burns' nature. We need only note that, inwrought into 
the being of Bobert Burns, was a domineering self-asser- 
tion and self consciousness. 

Intensity of emotion and overmastering self-assertive- 
ness, however, do not disclose to any satisfying measure 
the genius of the Ayrshire poet. His peculiar power de- 
pended more nearly upon other qualities; qualities by which 
only the forces of which I have been speaking could act 
worthily. Burns was endowed with one of the most affec- 
tionate natures that haye ever found expression in litera- 



1893 EMOTIONAL INTENSITY xiS MASTER FORCE 687 



ture. Love, impassioned by his emotional intensity, and 
shaping and being shaped by his supreme self conscious- 
ness was the master force of his career. This made him 
the devoted friend he was ; this was the spring of his 
tenderness to the unfortunate ; this generated and sustain- 
ed his touching longing for constant companionship with 
his kind ; this was the source of his chivalric devotion to 
woman. 

It was through this passion that songs like High- 
land Mary and To Mary to Heaven, among the 
sweetest, the most pathetic and deepest reaching in human 
experience, were brought into being. Through his native, 
all-quickening sympathy Burns became one with nature, 
and fellow with all forms of life ; with hill and dale, with 
wind, tree, brook, bird, flower, animal ; with the low T ly life 
of the home and home folk ; with the griefs, joys, hopes, 
and fears of his countrymen and, w 7 e may say, of man- 
kind. In a word, Burns was, above all else by which we 
may name him, a self-dedicated knight, adventuring for 
the human heart. Let me here recall some of the music 
which fell from the lips of the great hearted singer. Who 
does not remember as illustrative of Burns' loving fellow- 
feeling with nature, his liquid verse, — Flow gently siceet 
A/ton among thy green braes ; Ye floicery banks 
dbonny Doon ; the lightsome sparkle of The Birks 
of Aberfeldy; and the soft glide along The banks 
of the clear winding Devon, with green spreading 
bushes and floioers blooming fair. We all know, too, 
that tender personifying monologue of our poet's upon 
the Mountain Daisy w 7 hose faint life his ploughshare hacf 
destroyed. Nor can we ever forget the smile and tear 
with which the " best laid schemes of mice and men " 
were brought together, when Burns saw the " wee sleekit 
cowrin, tim'rous beastie" start away " wi' bickering brat- 
tle," as he, by accident ruined the " bit housie" of the tiny 
creature. Humor we remember, but a loving humor, 
in the elegy over the dead sheep Maillie, than w T hom " a 
friend mair faithful ne'er came nigh " our bard. 

But, of course, it was for the sake of love of man and 
of woman that Burns' song was fraught with purest and 



688 ESSAYS IN LITERATURE PART V 

deepest music. Good fellowship never was consecrated 
by heartier tones than in— 

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 

And never brought to niin'? 
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 

And days o'lang syne? 

and in Happy Friendship, where 

Around the ingle bleezing 

Wha sae happy and sae free : 
Though the northern wind blaws freezing 

Friendship warms baith you and me. 

Love, as a personal passion, however, it was, that called 
forth the most exquisite strains from the poet's lips. 

Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast 

On yonder lea, 
My plaid ie to the angry airt, 

I'd shelter thee ; 

Or were I in the wildest waste, 

Sae bleak and bare, 
The desert were a paradise, 

If thou wert there : 

Or were I monarch o' the globe, 

Wi 1 thee to reign ; 
The brightest jewel in my crown 

Wad be my queen. — 

is one of the sweetest love songs ever written. And 
nowhere has the pathos of ill-starred love found a more 
heart-rending utterance than in that outcry — 

Had we never loved sae kindly, 
Had we never loved sae blindly, 
Never met — or never parted, 
We had ne'er been broken hearted. 

Fare-thee-weel, thou first and fairest t 
Fare-thee-weel, thou best and dearest ! 

Nor do I know any lyric, celebrating perfect, lifelong love 
in wedlock, which equals in melodious beauty — 

John Anderson, my jo, John, 

We clamb the hill thegither ; 
And mony a canty day, John, 

We've had wi' ane anither. 
Now we maun totter down, John, 

But hand in hand we'll go ; 
And sleep thegither at the foot 

John Anderson', my jo. 



1893 BURNS' EXCEPTIONAL INTELLECTUALITY 689 

We have now found, in large part, the answer to our 
question. The great source of the peculiar power of 
Robert Burns, lay in intensity of emotion, working through 
an insistent self-consciousness and an impressible longing, 
which reached out in every direction, to love and be loved. 
But we must not ignore the intellectual forces which gave 
literary expression to this extraordinary emotional genius. 
Burns was not only endowed with an exceptional emotional 
nature, but, accompanying this, was a marvellous strength, 
keenness, and quickness of intellectuality, which must be 
recognized and understood if we would interpret the man 
aright. The boyhood of Burns was not spent in an 
environment of social refinement or mental culture. In 
the middle of the last century the condition of the Scottish 
peasantry was, on the contrary, intellectually and 
morally, pitiable. From babyhood, for some years after- 
wards, the child's mind was fed chiefly by rude traditions 
and superstitions. This material was of great value 
through the use Burns made of it ; but, in itself, it was 
miserably poor stuff. What school education he received 
was quite limited and crude ; but he was noted as a pupil 
for more than ordinary intellectual quickness and re- 
tentiveness. He drew from the meagre literature which 
fell in his way all there was in it. One of the first books 
he happened to get hold of, was a history of Wallace, the 
famous chieftain of ancient Scotland. That, he said, 
" poured a Scottish prejudice into ray veins, which will boil 
along their till the flood gates of life shut in eternal rest." 
Another book, which had perhaps more influence upon him 
than even the History of Sir William Wallace, was the 
Collection English Songs of which I have already spoken. 

His intellectual processes, as they matured, became 
a marvel of force and appropriation. His perceptions 
were extraordinary in directness, in simplicity, and in 
truthfulness. We are told that when his intellectual life 
was fully awakened he had a flow of language, a power of 
extemporaneous composition, a facility of rhythmic expres- 
sion, that has never been surpassed, perhaps never equalled. 
It was his custom, in mature years, when the song impulse 
urged him, to start out into the open air, where his ideas 



690 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



" arranged themselves in their natural order and words 
came at will." He seldom returned to the house without 
having finished the song. He says, in one of his poems, 

When a tale comes in my head, 
Or lassies gie my heart a screed, 
I kittle up my rustic reed ; 

It gies me ease. 

The brilliancy of Burns' conversational powers was 
notorious. In a word, this peasant poet was an intellectual 
prodigy. If anywhere we are to look for a poet by birth, 
we should turn to the ploughman singer of Ayr. 

But further, strange as it may seem to some, I hold 
that we cannot do justice of the genius of Burns without 
recognizing a profound moral consciousness among its 
sources. His mature life was tragic ; and throughout his 
career, in some relations, his conduct was miserably, 
morally wrong. But he was more a victim than a 
criminal. His conscience w 7 as clear in its recognition of 
duty. His moral sense expressed itself in some of the 
most helpful words that exalt literature. His hymns will 
always uplift aspiring souls ; and his poems of penitence 
and trust are borne onward by a sincere consciousness of 
God, of duty, and of the immortal hope. Never forget that 
the same hand which wrote blasting satires on hypocrisy, 
formalism, and cant, wrote, also, 

All hail, Eeligion ! Maid divine ! 
To stigmatize false friends of thine, 

Can ne'er defame thee. 
Though blocht and foul wi many a stain, 

And far unworthy of the train, 
With trembling voice I tune my strain 

To join with those 
Who boldly daur thy cause maintain. 

And he who gave free vent to rollicking fun and blame- 
worthy deed under the stimulus of strong animal vitality 
and excitement, also said : — 

O Thou unknown, Almighty Cause 

Of all my hope and fear, 
In whose dread presence ere an hour 

Perhaps I must appear ! 
Where human weakness has come short, 

Or frailty stepped aside, 
Do Thou, all good ! for such Thou art, 

In shades of darkness hide, 



1893 THE GENIUS OB BURNS AS A WHOLE . 691 

Then, is there not the voice of a victim in this familiar 
appeal to fellow men ? 

Gently scan your brother man, 

Still gentlier sister woman ; 
Though they may gang a kennin' wrang, 

To step aside is human. 
One point must still be in the dark, 

The moving why they do it, 
And just as lamely can ye mark, 

How far perhaps they rue it. 

Who made the heart, tis He alone, 

Decidedly can try us 
He knows each chord — its various tone, 

Each spring, — its various bias. 
Then, at the balance let's be mute, 

We never can adjust it. 
What's done, we partly may compute, 

But know not what's resisted, 

Yes, in memory of the tragedy of his short life, we must 
admit that none know better than Burns himself knew, 
the meaning and the pity of it. In the BarcVs Epitaph he 
tells the world, — 

The poor inhabitant below, 

AVas quick to learn, and wise to know, 

And keenly felt the friendly glow 

And softer flame, — 
But thoughtless folly laid him low 

And stained his name. 

All this Burns meant, for if ever there was a nature 
truthful with itself, with fellow man, and before God, it 
was bis. 

This, then, is the interpretation of the genius of Bober t 
Burns, I offer you ; — overmastering intensity of emotion ; 
persistent self-assertion associated with most sensitive 
sympathy and affectionateness; an intellect of extraordinary 
force, quickness, truth, and retentiveness, and a moral 
sense clear, deep, and unfailing. Now, given a man 
with these endowments ; add exceptional physical vitality ; 
place him in the last century, in Scotland ; in Ayr, in 
the lowly life of the peasantry there ; and in the 
cottage of William Burness, and it needs no prophet's 
vision to see the way in which such man would go. 

Particular event or the end could not be foreseen : 
but for one of such nature, only one career could be 



692 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



passed. A career of keenest pleasure and pain ; but of 
more pain than pleasure. A noticeable and far faring 
career ; — no pent up Ayr could confine its powers. A 
memorable career ; — Burns was born to lead and to strive 
to lead, to command and to achieve. Yet, whatever one 
might predict for a nature gifted as was that of Burns, the 
way it actually went is what concerns now. What did 
Eobert Burns do ? 

J&S. vJ/ \l/ ■ 

'7F 7f% 7{C 

I do not propose to read the biography of our poet. 
You know it well from the humble beginning, through the 
toilful yet wayward course, to the mournful end ; — the 
man 

Nae rules nor rodes observing 
To right or left eternal swervin' 
Zig-zaggin' on. 

The story of his personal career, though one of absorbing 
interest, I need not retell. The especial worth of Eobert 
Burns to the world to-day, lies in the expression of his 
genius as embodied in literature ; his work as poet. 

A nature like that of Burns must concentrate itself upon 
things human. In lyric utterance it must be pre-eminent- 
ly a singer of human life. Intense in self-consciousness, 
and dominated by sympathy and longing for return of 
love, Burns' nature naturally busied itself above all with 
human beings and their tangible life. Abstractions to 
Burns were comparatively nothing. Truth as Wordsworth 
saw, it ; Beauty as Keats or Shelley felt it ; Good as Dante 
conceived it, had no attraction for Burns, and never could 
have commanded his genius. He was not philosophically 
reflective. To him, a man, a woman, himself, was of su- 
preme fascination. Nature, ideas of the True, the Beauti- 
ful and the Good were interesting to him, only as related 
to persons. " Man is always first in Bums," wrote Stop- 
ford Brooke, " and he either wholly subordinates Nature 
to Humanity, or he uses it as illustrative of human life/' 
Burns did love nature, we all know : — 

The Muse, nae poet ever found her, 
Till by himself he learned to wander 
Adown some trotting burn's meander, 



1S93 EMINENTLY POET OP SCOTTISH LIFE 



693 



he sang ; " and there is not a song of his which has not 
its back ground of tender landscape." Bat his natural des- 
cription is always given for the sake of the men and 
women, " for the human love, or sorrow, or mirth/' "for the 
human feeling with which he links it, and when the feel- 
ing is most deep, the landscape is most lovely." Above all 
Burns was a poet of human life, 

By the urging of his genius compelled to be a poet of 
human life, Burns, born one of the peasantry of Ayr, in- 
evitably became &poet of homely Scotch life. He was no 
bard for mansion, castle, or court, He wrought for the 
humble folk of which he was part ; his songs were of the 
lowly lives around him in cot and on the glebe. Never 
was such noble justice done to " the short but simple annals 
of the poor," as in The Cottar $ Saturday Xight. Never 
was there a more rollicking recital of " the simple pleasures 
of the lowly train/' than in Halloween 

That night, when fairies light 
On Cassils Dounans dance. 

Never was there a more graphic plea for peasant tenants' 
rights than in Ttca Dogs. The songs current a hundred 
years ago among the common people of Scotland, Burns 
found as coarse, licentious, unfi: for pure minds anil the 
voices at the home fireside, These he transmuted by his 
tender and fervid muse into verse, almost without blemish. 
We need not wonder, therefore, that the people of Scot- 
land and millions of mankind soon learned to love Burns 
as perhaps no other poet has been loved. Ralph Waldo 
Emerson said, " He endeared the farm house and cottage, 
patches anil poverty, beans and barley." It was Bums 
who touched fountains lying deepest in Scottish — yes, in 
human souls everywhere, as he sang — 

To make a happy fireside clime 

For weans and wife, 
Is the true pathos and sublime 

Of human life. 

In Prof. Shairp's estimate of our poet, he tells us that 
Burns not only sympathized with the wants, the trials, 
the joys and sorrows of the obscure lot of his people, but 
he interpreted them to themselves and interpreted them to 
others, and this to in their own language made musical and 



694 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



glorified by genius. " He made the poorest ploughman 
proud of his station and his toil, since Eobbie Burns had 
shared and sung them. He awoke a sympathy for them 
in many a heart that otherwise would never have known 
it. In looking up to him, the Scottish people have seen 
an impersonation of themselves.'' 

So centered was Burns' love upon his own home and 
people, that he never chose a theme from distant peoples 
and lands. He was content with Ayr and with Scotland. 
Even for Scotland he was almost exclusive in the devotion 
of his music to his ow T n folk. His home district, he called 
Coila, and memorable is his challenge to William Simpson, 
a neighbourhood rhymer, — 

Auld Coila now may fidge fu' fain 

She's gotten poets o' her ain. 
Ramsay and famous Fergusson 
Gied Forth and Tay a lift aboon ; 
Yarrow and Tweed, to many a tune, 

Owre Scotland rings, 
While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, and Doon, 

Naebody sings. 
Th' Illisus, Tiber, Thames, and Seine, 
Glide sweet in mony a tunfu' line ! 
But, Willie, set your fist to mine, 

And cock your crest. 
We'll gar our streams and burnies shine 

Up wi' the best. 
We'll sing auld Coila's plains and fells, 
Her moors red-brown wi' heather bells, 
Her banks and braes, her dens and dells. 

He did make "the streams and burnies " of Ayr shine up 

with the best. His work made a land, thitherto unvalued, 

a shrine to millions. 

Yet more, the songs which he dedicated to Scotland 

itself, have distinguished the country as " Scotia, the Land 

of Burns" What Scotchman's heart does not beat the 

stronger when he remembers. — 

Scots wha hae wi Wallace, bled, 

that glorious fulfilment of Burns' wish that he 

For poor auld Scotland's sake, 
Some useful plan or book could make, 
Or sing a song at least. 

What Scotchman does not think the more fondly of the 
man who said, 



1S93 



POET, TOO, FOE ALL MANKIND 



695 



The rough burr-thistle spreading wide 

Amang the bearded bear, 
I turned the weeder clips aside 

And spared the symbol dear. 

Burns has been called " the voice of Scotland's patriotism," 
even, " the restorer of her nationality." When he appear- 
ed, we are told, the spirit of Scotland was at a low ebb. 
Representative Scotchmen seemed ashamed of themselves 
and of their country. But Burns uncovered the spring of 
long forgotten emotions and brought back on the hearts of 
his countrymen a tide of patriotic feeling to which they 
had long been strangers. No one could be deaf to such 
reproaches as, Farewell to a' our Scottish Fame, and his 
Ode:— 

Thee, Caledonia, thy wild heaths among ; 
Thee, famed for martial deed and sacred song, 

To thee I turn with swimming eyes; 
Where is that soul of freedom fled ? 
Immingled with the mighty dead 

Beneath the hallowed turf where 
Wallace lies ! » 

Burns, however, true Scotchman that he was, belongs 
not to Scotland only but to Humanity. "We are not all 
Scottish, yet, to us all and to every man and woman who 
knows the poetry of the Scotch ploughman, his music 
comes, only to find a welcome. He sang for all ; out of 
the needs of all ; with warning comfort, joy, and hope for 
all. There is no mood of the soul for which he did not 
have a voice. He was enabled to give clear and full inter- 
pretation to the deepest experiences of life ; he became a 
revealer of the human heart to itself. 

I now leave our theme. If I have but in some measure 
disclosed the genius of Bobert Burns, and shown the me- 
morable work he did, I shall be happy to have spent this 
hour with you. Yet, as I close, let us remember, for a 
moment more, the man himself. I draw no moral from 
his life, pitiable failure though it was. Of himself he once 
said- — 

I saw thy pulse's maddening play 
Wild send thee Pleasure's devious way, 
Misled by Fancy's meteor ray, 

By Passion driven ; 
But yet the light that led astray 

Was light from Heaven. 



696 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



Yes, his genius was " light from heaven " as it shone in 
his verse. Why it became a blasting fire in his own life 
let us, in answer to his own heart-broken appeal, not at- 
tempt to judge. Let us rather leave our study listening to 
Wordsworth speaking, — 

Of those moments bright 
When to the consciousness of right 

His course was true. 
When Wisdom prospered in his sight 

And Virtue grew : 

and glad to remember that now, 

Through busiest street and loneliest glen, 
Are felt the flashes of his pen : 

and that 

Deep in the general heart of men 
His power survives. 

Note. — Address before the Yokohama Literary Society at the 
Burns' Memorial Meeting, Jan. 27th, 1893. 



II. 

CHARLES DICKENS: AN APPRECIATION. 

One hundred years ago Charles Dickens was born. 
Forty years ago he died. In the fifty-eight years of his 
life, he passed through one of the most notable of the 
careers of the noteworthy men of the last century. 
Dickens's arena was the field of letters. Literary fame 
speedily followed the exercise of his marvellous abilities. 
The scope of his work was man's life, especially as found 
in the manifold experiences, — joyous, grievous and tragic, 
of the middle and lower masses of English society. His 
aim, if we ignore an insistent ambition to become per- 
sonally distinguished and prosperous, was primarily popu- 
lar entertainment. Early in his career, it is true, Dickens 
girded himself as an aggressive critic and mentor of the 
faults of the society of his time, and attempted the reform 
of much deplorable social wrong ; but, to begin with, he 



1912 



A SKETCH OF DICKENS'S LIFE 



697 



was more than anything else just an entertainer for the 
reading public. The life-story of Dickens need not be told 
at length, here. It was not one of exceptional eventful- 
ness. Nor was it one of any special misfortune, or of 
doubtful success, after the few years of privation that have 
been named his " poverty-stricken childhood. " Some 
leading biographical items, however, may be recalled. 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

Charles Dickens was born in England, on the island of 
Portsea, the 7th of February, 1812. He was born into a 
family so well advanced socially, that the father, John 
Dickens, held a Government clerical position which must 
have required of its occupant considerable education and 
some refinement of personal culture. But, because of a 
characteristic lack of business ability in the father, the 
increasing family was seriously straitened in money 
matters, and in time became poor ; so poor, that the boy, 
Charles, in his later childhood had to endure, what he 
graphically styled, " abject poverty." In Chatham, where 
the family lived from the boy's fifth to his eleventh year, 
he went to school and was a quick learner, It was in his 
eleventh year, the family having moved to London, that 
there came a short but unpleasant episode. Dickens was 
a precocious boy, and, by nature, the victim of excessive 
sensitiveness. He was also eagerly ambitious for personal 
distinction. Consequently, to be put into service in the 
shop of a relative where blacking-paste was manufactured, 
and to be compelled to label the paste jars, was to him 
" menial labor under the most uncongenial conditions." 
The reflections made upon that unhappy year and a half 
can be excused, because they were made by Charles 
Dickens, and were natural to the personality which gave 
him much of his power in his maturer years ; but let us 
not think of the episode as having been, in itself, one of 
exceptional distress. 

The misery of the little boy in his cousin's blacking 
warehouse was soon over with ; more congenial days were 
entered. He was sent to a school in the suburbs of 
London. I came across, lately, a newspaper note which 



698 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



gives some memories of those school days. " My recollec- 
tion of Dickens," writes a classmate " is of a rather short, 
stout, jolly-looking youth, very fresh colored, and full of 
fun and given to laugh immoderately without any ap- 
parently sufficient reason. He was not particularly 
studious, nor did he show any special signs of ability, al- 
though as a boy he would at times indite short tales. As 
for education, he really received hardly any. Wellington 
House School, where Dickens was a day scholar and I a 
boarder, certainly absorbed almost all the respectable youth 
of that then sparsely inhabited neighborhood, but the state 
of proficiency was not very high, Dickens (then about 
twelve years old) took the first place, where we could not 
dislodge him. As a slight trait of character I may cite his 
appropriation of an old joke. He had on a very much 
used pair of inexpressibles, and one of us remarking, 
* Dickens, those trousers are well worn : it is about time 
you gave them a rest,' he replied good-humoredly ' Ah, 
yes ! You are right ; it is a long time since they had a 
nap.' Eeferring to the more especially excellent delinea- 
tions of characters in low life that we find in his writings, 
I remember being at a juvenile party in Johnson street, 
and, he, quite a boy, singing the then popular song of ' The 
Cat's Meat Man,' which he delivered with great energy 
and action, his tone and manner displaying the full zest 
with which he appreciated and entered into all the vul- 
garity of the composition." 

At fifteen years of age Dickens became an office boy for 
some London attorneys. Desirous of following his father 
in a new venture, he qualified as a reporter in two law 
courts in London. When nineteen years old he secured 
an appointment for newspaper work in the reporter's 
gallery of the House of Commons. Two years later, he 
bad begun his career as an author with the first of the 
stories which afterwards were gathered into the volume 
named, " Sketches by Boz." And at the age of twenty- 
four he had fully launched his life for a literary career, by 
beginning, as a serial, the ever-memorable " Posthumous 
Papers of the Pickwick Club." 

During the next thirty and more years, with no serious 



1912 



ESTIMATE OF DICKENS, PERSONALLY 



G99 



falling away at any time of an increasing popularity, 
Dickens was one of the most prolific and well re- 
warded, and, altogether, the most widely read, most ad- 
mired and most applauded of the authors in the realm of 
English literature. Besides, in the last twelve years of his 
life he was not only before the public as its most popular 
writer of books, but as a public reader of his writings. 
Around him, throughout England and in America, gather- 
ed crowds of enthusiastic auditors. 

In the year 1870, Charles Dickens died. He passed 
away at the very summit of his career, without having 
had to endure any previous disabling illness. His body 
was buried in the Poets' Corner in "Westminster Abbey, the 
ancient 1 1 Memorial of British Worthies in Civics, Church, 
Science, Art and Letters." Carlyle, at Dickens's death, 
voiced a wide-spread esteem, in speaking of him, as, " the 
good, the gentle, high-gifted, ever friendly, noble Dickens, 
—every inch of him an Honest Man." And now, in the 
Centennial Year of the birth of this " high-gifted " man, 
many hundreds of memorial meetings, in many lands, are 
being held to celebrate him and his work : — and more 
than twenty-five millions of sets of his books, it is estimat- 
ed, are to be found in the libraries and homes of the world's 
reading peoples. 

This evening our Society takes part in this world-wide 
celebration. 

We have not the time now, nor have I the comprehen- 
sive and intimate knowledge necessary, for an adequate 
estimate of Dickens, the man ; or to assign him his due 
value in the realm of letters ; or to recount satisfactorily 
what he has done to help human welfare onward. At 
most I can only draft an appreciation of him with 
large strokes, and fill in with partial and probably not the 
most satisfactory, or significant, detail, 

PERSONAL ESTIMATE 

At the outset, however, I must ask your indulgence in 
recalling the fact that for most of my life I have been 
rather indifferent, it not antipathetic, to Dickens, the man. 

In childhood I was ecstatic over the fun I found in 



700 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



" Pickwick." As a mere boy I read those delightfully 
absurd " Perambulations, Perils, Travels, Adventures and 
Sporting Transactions " over and over again. In 1852, 
I set a serious task for myself by trying to read " Bleak 
House/' as it was carried along from month to month in 
Harper s Magazine. The story of a suit in English 
Chancery was naturally at a far remove from the im- 
mature thoughts and experiences of a boy of nine. But 
I labored faithful through successive numbers. However, 
afterwards I found much pleasure in "The Cricket, ,, and 
" The Carol." When, yet later, the " Tale of Two Cities" 
was put into my hands, I became an enthusiastic admirer 
not only of the story, but also of the man who could 
attain to such thrilling, overpowering, splendid achieve- 
ments in historical romance, and could so valiantly 
champion the rights of the downtrodden and miserably 
bestialized masses of mankind. After years never lessened 
the admiration I then conceived for the products of 
Dicken's pen. But for a long time my pleasure in him 
found its chief source there. I accepted his skill as a 
writer who was worthy of almost unstinted praise. I 
welcomed his denunciations and appeals, as a valiant 
championship of the rights of abused mankind ; as the 
means for bringing about much needed reforms because of 
many social wrongs ; as a mighty helper of the helpless 
poor, of the wretchedly oppressed, of the suffering and the 
hopeless social outcasts But, along with this admiration, 
I was continually inclined to regard this valiant champion 
as being, yet more, a literary artist, who used his know- 
ledge of the lower and abysmal strata of the human world 
in England chiefly for the purpose of sensational and 
remunerative exploitation. 

In these later ye, irs, however, has come a kindlier, and, 
probably, a more just^ estimate. And I now am of the 
opinion that even if the judgment of which I have been 
speaking was justified, it should not be allowed to detract 
at all from a cordial acknowledgment of the superbly 
beneficent worth of Dickens's work. The over-reaching 
personal ambition ; the shrewd utilization of knowledge, 
even of a pathetic and tragic kind, he displayed for the 



1912 



DICKENS AS LITERARY ARTIST 



701 



purpose of gaining fame and pecuniary profit ; the personal 
vanity and hypersensitiveness concerning the attitude of 
critics and of the exacting public ; — these things, in large 
part the unfortunate consequences of temperament and 
environment, are not to be remembered as necessarily in- 
compatible, though out of harmony, with earnestness of 
purpose to expose social wrong and to try to bring about 
needed reform. Whatever else may be true, Dickens 
certainly saw society in many ways absurdly made up, 
and painfully and pitifully " out of joint : " and he tried 
to set it right. His personal failings, then, can be ignored, 
or put aside, as that which perishes, and his splendid 
mental powers and the service he rendered for the sake of 
promoting human welfare may be cherished as his im- 
mortal part. Here is the true substance which will 
endure, and, we may believe, will be accepted with the 
passing years as the standard by which Charles Dickens is 
to be measured. 

We shall not, therefore, concern ourselves with the 
personal life of Dickens except as happenings or people 
connected with it may aid in illustrating and interpreting 
him as he appears in his books. 

So, then, turning to Dickens's writings, we meet in 
them a literary artist, in the highest and most comprehen- 
sive sense of the words. 

DOMINANT ARTISTIC QUALITIES 

Among his qualities as an artist in letters we discover, 
possibly of most notable importance, an extraordinary 
ability, amounting to genius, for making plastic and for 
vitalizing everything with which his pen was busied. 
With an exhuberant and perfervid imagination he por- 
trayed, along with his human figures, thoughts, feelings, 
actions, mere things, as animated and personal. The 
objects of his attention, whatever their real quality or 
function, were, for him, specifically sentient, alive, feeling 
strongly and in intelligent movement. 

Then, next, we note that in bringing his scenes and his 
actors before his readers, he habitually adopted as his 



702 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART Y 



mocle of expression, a style markedly vivid, often intense, 
at times impetuous and surcharged with passion. 

Moreover, we soon learn, too, that his attention was so 
comprehensive and so minute that we must give close 
heed if we would see as he saw ; and we must regard his 
exhibits almost as microscopic studies. 

These three qualities stand forth as distinctive and 
commanding in the manner of Dickens's artistic work- 
manship. 

PERSONIFICATION 

Do you remember, just to take one example among 
many hundreds of like character, his personification, in 
" Martin Chuzzlewit," of the night-wind? He brings it 
before us as a wandering, complaining, restless spirit. It 
speeds " round a Church, moaning, as it tries with unseen 
hand the windows and the doors, seeking some way for 
entrance. And, when it gets in, not finding what it seeks, 
it w 7 ails and howls to issue forth again. Not content with 
stalking through the aisles and gliding round and round 
the pillars and tempting the deep organ, it soars up to the 
roof and strives to rend the rafters. Then it flings itself 
despairingly upon the stones below, and passes, muttering, 
into the vaults.' ' In like manner, in " The Chimes " the 
east- wind blows as a mischievous sprite, It came, we are 
told, " tearing round the corner, as if it has sallied forth, 
express," to have a blow at Toby Veck. " It seemed to 
come upon him sooner than it had expected ; for bouncing 
round the corner and passing Toby, it would suddenly 
wheel round again as if it cried, ' Why, here he is.'" 

We need not multiply examples of this personifying 
imagination. The pages of Dickens's books abound with 
them. 

INTENSITY 

So far as impetuousity, intensity, and passion in style 
were the vehicle of Dickens's thought, Taine declares that 
" half the glory of his literary expression was this style." 
"Recall, for instance, only as a grim illustration of this 
characteristic, his description of the pupils of Dotheboys 
Hall We are confronted with " pale and haggard faces, 



1912 DICKENS AS LITERARY ARTIST 703 



lank and long figures," " children with the countenances 
of old men, deformities with irons upon their limbs, boys 
of stunted growth, and others whose long and meagre 
legs would hardly bear their stooping bodies, — all crowded 
on the view together. There were the bleared eye, the 
bare-lip, the crooked foot and every ugliness or distortion 
that told of unnatural aversion conceived by parents for 
their offspring. — -With every kindly sympathy and 
affection blasted in its birth ; with every young and 
healthy feeling flogged and starved down ; with every 
revengeful passion that can fester in swollen hearts eating 
its evil way to their core in silence, what an incipient Hell 
was breeding here ! " 

MINUTENESS 

Then, when we think of our author's habit of making 
excessively detailed or minute portrayals of the objects he 
pictured, every reader of Dickens can recall many illustra- 
tive passages. Storms were often described by him. Here, 
for example, is a paragraph showing what its writer could 
associate with a single flash of lightning : — " The eye, 
partaking of the quickness of the flashing light saw a 
multitude of objects which it could not see at steady noon 
in fifty times that period. Bells in steeples with the rope 
and wheel that moved them ; ragged nests of birds in 
cornices and nooks ; faces full of consternation in the tilted 
wagons that came tearing past ; their frightened teams 
ringing out a warning which the thunder drowned ; 
harrows and ploughs left out in field ; miles upon miles of 
hedge-divided country, with the distant fringe of trees as 
obvious as the scarecrow in the bean-field close at hand, 
In a trembling, flickering instant everything was clear 
and plain. Then came a flash of red into the yellow 
light ; a change to blue ; a brightness so intense that there 
was nothing else but light ; and then the deepest and 
profoundest darkness." 

What an imagination ! What intensity of perception ! 
And how minute withal, even to the rope and wheel in 
the belfry, and the bird-nest in the cornice crevice. This 
complex scene is disclosed by one lightning flash. It is no 



704 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



wonder that such vitalized, fulldrawn portrayal, flung upon 
the reader's attention, arouses memory of its like into 
almost forgotten depths and draws forth praise. Human 
nature is irresistibly attracted to that which shows such 
sympathetic, abundant and comprehensive life. 

DRAMATIC HABIT 

Accepting these distinguishing primary qualities, we 
discover, with them, the closely related fact, that Dickens 
was eminently dramatic in his art. Vitalizing, impas- 
sioned, comprehensively and minutely analytic his 
work was, essentially ; but, just as essentially, his writing 
tended to flow into dramatic forms and to portray 
dramatic action. The illustrations of this fact are as 
an embarrassment of riches ; they are like trees when one 
enters a forest. 

Do you remember — I ask only because the incident is 
first to come to mind, — do you remember the story of 
Poor Jo in " Bleak House," where the qualities of which 
I have been speaking are all in full movement ? 

Tom-all-Alone was dead. We have heard at length of 
the cruel relation of Society to the human wretchedness 
personified in that graceless, forsaken creature lying there 
in filthy, obnoxious mortality. Suddenly there appears 
out of the surrounding mass of iniquity and shame, " a 
molecule of the spawn," creeping upon the repulsive scene. 
It was Poor Jo, the street-sweep. Was Tom-all-Alone 
without even one friend ? Had he not even the semblance 
of a redeeming quality ? An answer was ready. Such as 
it was, here was a friend, and a grateful friend. " He 
was a very good to me," piped the ragged, starving waif. 
" He was very good to me, he was." 

It came to pass, then, that Tom-all-Alone was buried 
by " public charity." — " But," said Dickens, " in a beastly 
strip of ground which a Turk would reject as a savage 
abomination and a Caffre would shudder at." There he 
received " Christian burial " ; — <c a shameful testimony to 
future ages, how civilization and barbarism walked this 
boastful island together." 

But, so the story runs on, night after night came a 



1912 



DICKENS AS LITERARY ARTIST 



705 



little, crouching figure, with an old broom, to the miser- 
able grave-yard. The iron-barred gate, constantly closed, 
shut the child out from the wretched enclosure; yet he 
softly swept the step to it and made the archway clean, 
soliloquizing with the muttered reason, "He was very 
good to me." 

Then Poor Jo himself fell grievously ill. Some kindly 
care came to him at the last. 

" Jo, did you ever know a prayer ? " he was asked. 

" Never knowed nothink, sir." 

" Not so much as one short prayer ? " 

11 No sir. Nothink at all. Mr. Chadband, he was a- 
prayin' wunst at Mr. Sangsby's, and I heerd him; but he 
sounded as "if he was a speakin' to hisself, and not to me. 
Different times there was other gentlemen come down to 
Tom-all Alone's a-praying', but they all mostly said as 
t'other ones prayed wrong, and all mostly sounded to be 
a-talkin' to theirselves. We never knowed nothink. I 
never knowed what it was all about. ,, 

Jo took a long time to say this. Then a relapse into 
stupor befell him. Suddenly he roused and tried to leave 
his bed. 

"Stay, Jo! What now?" 

" It's time for me to go down to that there berrying 
ground, sir," he returns with a wild look. 

" Lie down and tell me. What burying ground, Jo ? 

" Where they laid him as was very good to me ; very 
good to me indeed he was. It's time fur me to go down 
to that there berryin' ground, sir, and ask to be put along 
with him. I wants to tell him that I'm as poor as him, 
now, and have come to be laid along with him." 

" By and by, Jo. By and by." 

" Ah ! P'raps they wouldn't do it, if I was to go 
myself. But, will you promise to have me took there, sir, 
and laid along with him ? 

" I will, indeed." 

" Thank 'ee, sir. Thank 'ee sir. They'll have to get the 
key of the gate, afore they can take me in, for it's alius 
locked. And ther's a step there, as I used to clean with 



706 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



my broom. — It's turned very, very dark, sir. Is there any 
light a' comin'?" 

The light came fast upon the dark, benighted way. 

Then, added the writer, " Dead, your Majesty. — Dead, 
my lords and gentlemen. — Dead, Eight Eeverends and 
Wrong Eeverends of every order. Dead, men and women, 
born with heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying 
thus around us every day." 

Indeed, Dickens could hardly be anything other than 
dramatic. Personally, his life throughout, he was im- 
pelled by the actor's instincts and used any available 
means for their expression. Early in his career he was 
eager to achieve the visible triumphs of the stage. " The 
fever of the footlights was always with him," wrote his 
son, Fielding Dickens. At twenty years of age, only illness 
prevented him from trying for an engagement at the 
Covent Garden Theatre. Ten years later he confided to 
Forster, an intimate friend, " I have often thought that 
I should certainly have been as successful on the boards as 
between them, ,, At that time, except for the protestations 
of friends he would have taken to the public platform and 
become a dramatic impersonator of characters in his own 
writings in whom he found particular artistic satisfaction. 

As it turned out, fourteen years later he did become a 
public reader, and you know how extraordinarily success- 
ful he was. His reading of the murder scene in Oliver 
Twist, it is said, was so " dramatic in its intensity that his 
audience was thrilled with the horror of it, and he worked 
himself up to a pitch of excitement which rendered him 
utterly prostrate " for some time. 

CHARACTERISTIC THEMES. 

Then, the themes to which Dickens gave his impassioned 
style and dramatic methods, — these were almost always 
under the sway of sentiments that are fundamental and 
universal. They were illustrated by events and situations, 
moods and actions, ranging all the way from the most 
absurd comedy to the profoundest pathos and tragedy. 
Throughout the score or more of our author's separate 
writings, we are constantly under the pressure of one form 



1912 CHABACTEUISTIC THEMES WITH DICKENS 707 



or another of emotion ; at times serene, but generally 
restless, passing with frequent transitions from laughter to 
tears, and back again ; now evoking boisterous merriment 
over the utter ridiculousness of person or event, and then, 
perforce, carrying one into the midst of scenes filled with 
sadness, suffering or, as may easily be, with repulsive 
horror. A .critic goes so far as to declare that Dickens 
" never rests in a natural style or in simple narrative;'' 
that " he writes but satires or elegies; that he only rails or 
weeps ; " — and that " this sensibility can hardly have 
more than two issues— laughter and tears." " There is no 
writer who knows better how to touch and melt ; " and 
at the same time he is " the most railing, the most comic, 
the most jocose of English authors." 

We can not now go over the pages of Dickens's books, 
and select from their munificent material, adequate illustra- 
tions of the judgment just given. It may be said, however, 
that if we were confined to a shelf of Dickens's book from 
which the " Pickwick Papers " were excluded, we would 
find it oftener true than we may think, that, while we 
should meet with much fun, we should discover it to be 
not just fun, but comedy somehow more or less akin to 
sadness, and often, indeed, in close association with grief or 
tragedy. 

In " Pickwick " we have almost pure comedy, if we 
pass by the stories which are mechanically inserted 
among the " Papers." Edwin Pugh in a suggestive, yet, 
as a whole I think, mistaken critique of Dickens, 
excellently describes " Pickwick Papers " as being irra- 
diated by " unexampled high spirits " ; as having 
" inexhaustible vivacity, comic force and inevitable drol- 
lery." He also distinguishes the bcok as being " the best 
mirror of an age, or an era, in any language ; whose value 
to history alone is incalculable." Chesterton, in his intro- 
duction to " Pickwick," reflects that, " It is pleasant to 
think that in this supreme masterpiece, done in the dawn 
of his career, Dickens did not try to make pathos, as he did 
afterwards, a thing quite obvious, infectious and public." 
" Pickwick," he adds, ' will always be remembered as the 
great example of everything that made Dickens great ; of 



708 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



the solemn conviviality of great friendships, of the erratic 
adventures of old English roads, of the hospitality of old 
English inns, of the great fundamental kindliness of old 
English manners. " 

"Pickwick" having been written, Dickens seems to 
have decided that fun-making, however much he might 
indulge in it thereafter, should not either engross or lead 
his work. He soon became an aggressive reformer, or at 
least the dramatic portrayer, of the abounding wrongs he 
found in Society. With but few exceptions, not setting 
aside even the Christmas Stories, or his semi-autobiography, 
" David Copperfield," or the quiet recital of " Great Ex- 
pectations " his books held rather grave and serious themes, 
to which his ridicule, his irony and satire, his pathos, his 
emotional intensity were given. He went directly to those 
social problems which he knew would arouse the most 
earnest attention. He applied his great powers especially 
to the help of the poor and the oppressed, the misunder- 
stood and the disregarded members of society. Buskin 
who was freely critical concerning Dickens's writings be- 
cause of the sensationalism and emotional extravagance he 
found in them, and who wished that Dickens "could 
limit his brilliant exaggeration to works written only for 
public amusement/ ' yet added this judgment when writ- 
ing of " Hard Times, 5 ' — "But let us not lose the use of 
Dickens's wit and insight because he chooses to speak in a 
circle of stage fire. He is entirely right in his main drift 
and purpose in every book he has written, but especially 
* Hard Times.' This book should be studied with close 
and earnest care by persons interested in social questions. 
If they examine all the evidence, it will appear that his 
view was the finally right one grossly and sharply told." 

During the latter part of Dickens's life, aside from what 
he did in his writings, we are told that he " was always 
tilting at some public abuse." " Wherever there seemed 
an outlet for his altruistic zeal " it was freely used. 

SPECIAL BOOKS OF GOOD CHEER. 

Much more should be added here, if we would make an 
adequate memorial of Charles Dickens. But we can not 



1912 



dickens's place in our memory 



709 



go much farther now. I should like to turn over with 
you the pages of those volumes which I have just signal- 
ized with special mention. This would be a particularly 
agreeable close to what I have made, I fear, rather a 
serious, if not sombre, lecture. — I specialized " Pickwick," 
the " Christmas Stories," " David Copperfield " and 
" Great Expectations." These books have made Dickens 
that writer of the last century to whom, more than to any 
other, multitudes have turned as the friend who has 
brought cheer to them. Lord Kosebery has distinguished 
Dickens as the man who taught a generation which was 
not skilled in this pleasure, how to laugh. " Any one 
who feels depressed/' he said " has only got to take down 
his Pickwick and read a few pages possibly that he knows 
by heart already," and he will find himself laughing. 
Thackeray called the " Christmas Carol," a national 
benefit, and, to every man who reads it, a personal kind- 
ness." Forster spoke of " the cheery voice of faith and 
hope in the " Carol," ringing from one end of the island to 
the other." " The Cricket on the Hearth" has become 
" a household word," and " a fireside inspiration." In 
fact, it has been humorously said, " Dickens invented 
Christmas." In "David Copperfield," named the ablest 
and clearest of Dickens's books, w T e find, more than any 
where else, a frank and generally agreeable revelation 
of Dickens himself. Then, there is the serene yet ironic 
and would-be cynical " Great Expectations " of the elder 
years, characterized as " always sweet and sane in humor," 
" the most humanly moving of his novels. " Great Ex- 
pectations " is the book which, Chesterton declares, put 
Dickens into spiritual association with Thackeray. 

But, inadequate as what I have been saying is, enough 
has been said, to recall Dickens as the writer in the near 
past who, richly endowed with a gift for intimacy w T ith 
common humankind, disclosed men to themselves and to 
one another in the plenitude of their complex life, and, 
therewith, did much not only to brighten their days, but, 
also, to inspire many to seek better lives for themselves, 
and to help their fellow-men onward and upward. 



710 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



The sum of my estimate is this. I think of Dickens as 
having achieved a two-fold pre-eminence among the men 
of letters whom the world delights to honor. None more 
than he has held the mirror up to human nature, and out 
of the small weaknesses, the foibles, the absurdities and the 
petty ambitions reflected there, contributed to the geniality, 
and even gaiety of the nations. Bat, also, hardly less has 
been his leadership towards social betterment, in the 
severe arraignments to which he subjected the laws and 
customs of his fellow countrymen, because of the poverty 
and suffering, the vice and the crime that cursed their 
social underworld. 

What place Dickens is to hold in the coming genera- 
tions, of course, only those who live hereafter can tell. 
But the judgment made concerning him to-day, that he 
" has remained a modern " among the men who were 
memorable in the past, seems to have been given with 
wise discernment. Also, it appears that, in a prophetic 
kind of way, his work holds an important relation to the 
progress of the era now passing. His service as the genial 
fun-maker, as the humorously poignant caricaturist 
abides, and will continue ; but, in a profound sense, he 
has also made permanent in literature much that will re- 
main as guidance and inspiration for those who seek to do 
away with some of the most grievous burdens of wrong 
and evil which oppress and degrade mankind. 

Note. — Eead before the Tokyo Literary and Musical Society, at the 
Dickens Centenary, February 27th, 1912. 



III. 

JAPANESE POETBY. 

Japanese poetry, regarded as part of the world's litera- 
ture, is individual and unique. It had its origin in a pre- 
historic age ; its form and content were of its own kind, 
and were practically fixed at the time it first appeared in 



1899 



THE HYAKUNIN-ISSHU 



711 



written speech ; and it reached its culminating excellence 
nearly a thousand years ago. At the present day, when 
the Japanese people have been released from their long 
held seclusion from the other peoples of the world, there is 
the probability that their poetry will come under the same 
stimulus that has vivified and started forward their sciences 
and their other products of mental energy ; but, so far, there 
has appeared little sign of promise for any noteworthy 
poetic development. A study of Japanese poetry, there- 
fore, carries one far back in the centuries, and into a 
literary realm that lies as isolated in the world of letters as 
the Empire of Japan has lain in the world of nations. 

With a wish to make a contribution to the study of the 
poetry of Japan, I invite you to turn to the collection of 
poems known as the Hyakunin-isshu. This collection 
may be accepted as fairly representative of that which is 
characteristic, as a whole, of the unique poetry of this 
people. It is not the largest single collection of Japanese 
poems ; it did not originate, as was true of most other col- 
lections, under Imperial direction ; nor does it contain any 
of the few longer poems that once promised much for the 
future of Japanese poetry ; but, in these single songs 
of one measure, taken from the works of a hundred 
writers, there have been gathered many that are of 
the very highest excellence. All of them are distinctive 
in form and in subject-matter, and nearly all of them 
were produced in that period of Japan's history whose 
literature has been commended as " classic." Besides, 
this collection of poems as a whole is comprised within 
an easily managed round number. And, moreover, 
whatever may be its worth throughout, it is at pres- 
ent, and has been for a long time, in largest part the 
household poetry of the Japanese, in the form of a game 
at cards, in which man, woman and child repeat over and 
over again in their play the measures and thoughts of 
these verses. In brief, there is no other gathering of Jap- 
panese poems so manageable for a single course of study. 
For all ordinary investigation, it is sufficiently instructive 
concerning the peculiar characteristics of the poetry of 
Japan ; and, for readers in Europe and America, it will 



712 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



serve to show well the kind of poetio production and 
pleasure that has the largest favor" with this people. 

These " Single Songs of a Hundred Poets " were not 
gathered together in this form until towards the middle of 
the Thirteenth Century. At that time there were existing 
many comprehensive and accepted compilations of verse. 
The poems that, according to tradition, had been sung by 
the gods and ancient heroes had been preserved in such 
authorized histories as the Kojiki (Record of Old Things), 
and the Nihon-sliolti (History of Japan), which brought 
the traditions and records of the country down from the 
farthest past to about the end of the Seventh Century of 
the Christian era. But, near the middle of the Eighth 
Century, during the reign of the Empress Koken, Tachiba- 
na no Moroe began to collect into one work all the poems 
then extant, _which work, in the Ninth Century, as supple- 
mented by Otomo no Yakamochi and others, came into 
literature as the celebrated Manyoshu (Collection of Myriad 
Leaves). In the twenty volumes constituting this collec- 
tion there are 4,515 poems, among which are gathered 
268 of what are called naga uta, " long songs,'* because 
they are composed of more than the five lines to which the 
standard Japanese poem is limited. The " long songs/' or 
naga uta, of the Manyoshu are spoken of as especially ad- 
mirable. They have been used for centuries as models of their 
kind by Japan's poets. Among the many writers distinguish- 
ed in the Manyoshu are Kakinomotojio Hitomaro (No. 3), 
Yamabe no Akahito (No. 4), and Otomo no Yakamochi 
(No. 6), specimens of whose verse appear in the Hyahmin- 
isshu. 

In the Tenth Century, after the Imperial capital 
had been fully established in Kyoto and a hundred years 
and more of the dominance of Chinese influence in Japan- 
ese literature had passed, a revival of literature distinctive- 
ly Japanese took place. By order of the Emperor Daigo, 
between the years 905 and 922 A.D., Ki no Tsurayuki 
(No. 35), a poet of the rank of the earlier Hitomaro, made 
a new compliation of verse, called the KoJcinshu (Ancient 
and Modern Songs). This work is now esteemed the 
finest, and it is the most studied, collection of poems in 



1S99 ANCIENT COLLECTIONS OF POETRY 713 



Japanese literature. It contains more than 1,100 " songs," 
or uta, only 5 of which are naga uta. This work, divided 
into twenty parts, has among its treasures quite a number 
of uta, of the standard measure commonly known as tan- 
ka, which are repeated in the Hyakunin-isshu. Among the 
tanka so quoted, is the one ascribed to the Emperor Ten- 
chi (No. 1), and those written by Sarumaru (No. 5), Ki- 
sen (No. 8), Ono no Komachi (No. 9), Henjo (No. 12), 
Kawara no Sadaijin (No. 14), Yukihira (No. 16), Narihira 
(No. 17), Yasuhide (No. 22), Kanesuke (No. 27), Mineyu- 
ki (No. 28), Oshikochi (No. 29), Korenori (No. 31), Oki- 
kaze (No. 34), and Fukayabu (No. 36). It was at this 
period in the Empire's history that poetry began to have a 
language peculiarly its own, distinctly marked off from that 
of ordinary speech. 

Fifty years later than the compilation of the Kokinshu, 
about 970 A.D., a school of poetry was established in 
the Imperial Palace, and poetic composition became, and 
for a long time remained, one of the chief accomplish- 
ments of the members of the Court and of the nobil- 
ity. Various collections of verse, supplementary of the 
Manydshu and the Kokinshu, were then made under Im- 
perial command, Between the time of the completion of 
the Kokinshu (922 A.D.), and of the gathering of the 
Hyakunin-isshu (1235 a d.) ? no less than seven authorized 
and distinguished collections of poems were made. These 
were, 1. Gosenshu ("After Collection), 2. Shuishu (Gathered 
Eemnants), 3. Goshuishu (Post-Gathered Eemnants), 4. 
Kinyoslm (Golden Leaves), 5. Shikivashu (Wild Flowers), 
6. Senzaishu (Immortal Songs) and 7. Shinkokinshu 
(New Kokinshu). These works together with the Kokin- 
shu are knowm in literature as the Hachidaishu (Collec- 
tions of Eight Dynasties). They are all possessed of much 
merit. It is said that the Shinkokinshu " contains stanzas 
constructed with remarkable skill, the phraseology subtle 
and elegant, the rhythm easy and graceful, the style re- 
fined and the ideas profound. " It " stands at the head of 
all collections of poems published under Imperial auspices." 

In these seven compilations may be found some of the 
best tanka reproduced in the Hyakuni?i-isshu, For ex° 



714 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



ample, those written by Hitoshi (No. 39), and Tadami 
(No. 41), are found in the Gosenshu ; those by Ukon (No. 
38), Kanemori (No. 40), Kentokuko (No. 45), Eikei (No, 
47), Yoshitaka (No. 50), Sanekata (No. 51), Michinobu 
(No. 52), Kinto (No. 55), Izumi Shikibu (No. 56), Daini 
no Sammi (No. 58), Akasome Emon (No. 59), Sei-Shona- 
gon (No. 62), Michimasa (No. 63), Masafusa (No. 73), 
are taken from the two Shuishu ; those by Gyoson ("No. 
66), Tsunenobu (No. 71), Yushi Naishi no Kii (No. 72), 
are quoted from the Kinyoshu ; those by Yoshinobu (No. 
49), Ise no Osuke (No. 61), Hoshoji no Nyudo (No. 76), 
Sutoku-in (No. 87), are from the Shikwashu ; and those by 
Tadayori (No. 64), Suwo no Naishi (No. 67), Toshiyori 
(No. 74), Mototoshi (No. 75), Horikawa (No. 80), Go- 
Tokudaiji (No. 81), Doin (No. 82), Toshinari (No. 83), 
Shunye (No. 85), Saigyo (No, 86), Kwoka Mon-in no 
Betto, (No. 88), Impu Mon-in no Taiu (No. 90), Nijo no 
In no Sanuki (No. 92), Jien (No. 95), are from the Sen- 
zaishu. The Shinkokinshu was in large measure only a 
re-editing of the poetical collections made subsequently to 
that of the Kokinshii. The leading poets of the later time, 
that is, towards the Thirteenth Century, were Toshinari, 
Saigyo, Ietaka (Karyu), and Sadaie. Special mention 
should be made of the poet-Shogun, Sanetomo (No. 93), 
of the end of the Twelfth Century, whose songs, it has been 
said, " find no parallel in cognate compositions subsequent 
to the Nara Epoch. 5 ' 

With this store of poetic treasures al command, some 
one about the year 1235 a.d., brought together these 
" Songs of a Hundred Toets " as one anthology. Just 
by whom and how the Hyakunin-isshu came to be 
gathered is no longer known. Certainly, in its present 
form, its editorship is doubtful. The author of the Dai 
Niho?i-shi (History of Great Japan) was satisfied, upon 
the authority of the Mei-getsu-ki (Eecord of Brilliant 
Months), that the collection was made by Teikakyo, 
whose family name was Fujiwara no Sadaie (No. 97). 
Sadaie, or Teikakyo, held high office. He was an Imperial 
Vice-Counsellor prior to, and under, the reign of the Em- 
peror Shijo (1233-1242 a.d.). He was also one of the 



1S99 



ORIGIX OF THE HYAKUNIN-ISSHF 



715 



leading poets of bis day. Under bis direction the ShinJcoJcin- 
shu was compiled. The Mei-getsu-ki was, it is said, a 
daily record kept by Teikakyo, The original manuscript 
has almost wholly perished. Indeed, some of the supposed 
authorized sheets of the work are doubtful. And there is 
much question whether the present form of the Hyakunin- 
isshu is that which it had at the first. 

Among the traditions connected with the compila- 
tion of the anthology is this : — Teikakyo was a skilful 
writer of the kana syllabary. He also held a posi- 
tion that might be called the poet-laureateship of the 
time. Among his friends, or relatives, was a noble 
named Utsunomiya Yasaburo, or Eensho, who became 
a lay-priest, or nyudd, and lived in a cottage in the 
village of Ogura in Saga. In the " Eecord of Brilliant 
Months" it is stated, " I wrote for the shoji of the 
1 Middle House.'of Saga,' colored papers, and sent them. At 
night I sent them to Eingo." Eingo, whose name is gener- 
ally known as Tameie, wasTeikakyo'sson and was married 
to Utsunomiya Yasaburo's daughter. With some, the sup- 
position is that the latter, Eensho, who was a poet also, 
had requested Sadaie through the son to write down, with 
his skilled pen, a hundred poems which he, Eensho, had 
selected for the decoration of shoji in his new country 
house at Ogura. Sadaie obligingly complied with the 
request. "Were this story true, Eensho, not Sadaie, would 
have whatever reputation belongs to the compilation of 
the hundred songs. Afterwards, when Tameie, as it is 
said, copied the poems from the shikishi, or thick fancy- 
colored paper, used for the writing of poems, he arranged 
them in an approximate chronological order. 

Another tradition locates the poetic ornamentation of 
the shoji in the poet's own country house at Ogurayama, 
whither the poet had retired after resignation of his office in 
the Imperial Court. Sadaie's choice of the poems, according 
to this story, was made without special forethought and 
without system. He wrote down the verses at random, 
just as they happened to come into memory, while he had 
brush in hand. Strict literary judgment did not guide 
him. For this reason, the songs show unequal merit : 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



some, displaying the very finest quality, appearing side by 
side with others that are of inferior worth. 

The mode of production of the collection, however, is a 
matter of comparative indifference. This " Century of 
Songs " exists : — by the fortune of circumstances, in time 
it became known everywhere as the Ogura Hyakunin- 
isshu. 

How the hundred poems happened to come into use for 
a household game at cards is not known. The first 
decided notice of the game is found after the time of the 
fourth Shogunate, or in the age of Genrokn (1688-1703 a d). 
It was in this period that Kaibara Yekken wrote the 
"Great Learning for Women " (Onna Daigahi), and 
other books for the education of women. Special atten- 
tion was paid to the education of girls then. Girls' books 
were much in demand. At that time the Hyakunin-isshu 
became useful as a text-book for private female education. 
During the Shogunate, when the poems had been trans- 
ferred to separate cards, a package of the Hyakiinin-isslia 
was looked upon as a part of the bride's household outfit. 
At that time, many samurai in Kyoto, skilled in calligra- 
phy, aided in the financial support of their households by 
writing the hundred poem-cards for the market. Some of 
these cards, written by well known noblemen, have had 
great pecuniary value. A story is handed down, that about 
six hundred years ago, the Imperial Court guards had a 
habit in night-watches of writing with bits of charcoal 
inside their porcelain plates, each, one of the " parts " of 
extemporized poems, renga, and of seeing how one part 
would fit with another. This verse-play, it is supposed 
by some, suggested a similar use of the hundred songs. 
But, as said before, the origin of the uta-garuta y or 
" song cards," is unknown. We must be satisfied with 
the fact that two centuries or more ago, the poems some- 
how had gained place in the homes of the Japanese 
people in the form of a game, whereby they have become 
the common property of old and young, and are to-day as 
household words. (See Transactions of this Society, Vol. 
II, page 129.) 

>j£ sje •; • j|c jje 



1S99 



MOST ANCIENT JAPANESE POEM 



717 



Before making a closer examination of the Hyalmnin 
isshu, let us take a glance at Japanese poetry generally. 
What are its special characteristics, — in form, in content 
and in general quality ? 

Simplicity and brevity in its forms, are probably the 
most prominent characteristics that appear to an eye 
accustomed to, and familar with, the poetry of the West. 
The standard model for Japanese poetic structure is a 
five-versed stanza, named the tanka, in which all the 
songs of the Hyahmin-issliu, and by far the most of 
Japanese poems, are embodied. The tanka is composed 
of only thirty-one syllabics. These syllabics are arranged 
in five verses, or measures ; the first and third measures 
containing as a rule five syllabics each ; and the second, 
fourth, and fifth measures, each including seven. Usually 
these five verses may be divided into two complete parts, 
namely, the " first," or "upper," part (Jcami no ha), made 
up of the first three lines ; and the " second,' 9 or " lower," 
part (shimo no Jcu), consisting of the fourth and fifth 
lines. 

The reputed most ancient song treasured in Japa- 
nese tradition, the song of the god Susa-no-o, sung 
at the building of the bridal palace for a celestial pair, is 
the prototype of this popular measure. " When this 
Great Deity first built the palace of Suga," says the Kojiki, 
"clouds rose up thence. Then he made an august song. 
That song said :— 

" Yakumo tatsu 

Izzwzo yae gala 
Tsuma gomi ni 

Yaegahi tsuhuru : 

Sono yae gaki wo ! " 

Or, in somewhat free translation, but according to the 
original metre :— 

" Many clouds appear : 

Eight-fold clouds a barrier raise 

Round , the wedded pair. 

Manifold the clouds stand guard, 
0 that eight-fold barrier- ward ! " 



718 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PABT V 



Besides the tanka there are numerous variations in 
arrangement of the fundamental five and seven-syllabic 
verses, but the limits of this study prevent their illustra- 
tion. There are, however, two extremes of composition 
that may be noticed in passing the naga uta, or "long 
song," and the hokku, or " first verses." The naga uta 
is indefinite in length, It is made up of couplets of the 
two kinds of verses,— the five and the seven syllabled 
verses, — the end of the poem being in an additional seven 
syllabic verse. The hokku is a complete poem contained 
in only seventeen syllabics that make up the first three 
lines, or "part," of the tanha. The hokku must bean 
exceedingly compact bit of word and thought skill to be 
worth anything— as literature. The following hokku, 
which is also an acrostic of the word yutaka, "fruit- 
fulness," " abundance,"— is a good illustration of its kind. 

Yufudachi ya 

Ta wo mi-meguri no 
Kami naraba. 

If the summer shower 

Would but round the rice-fields go 
As it were a god ! 

So far as cadence is concerned, Japanese poetry is 
almost without it. Careful students of the language, like 
Dr. W. G. Aston, and Professor B. H. Chamberlain, 
fail to find any. " The cadence of Japanese poetry," the 
former says, " is not marked by a regular succession of 
accented syllables as in English." It has, says the latter, 
" neither rhyme, assonance, alliteration, accentual stress, 
quantity, nor parallelism." These judgments are true, — but 
with some qualification. It is true that Japanese verse has, 
normally, an irregular cadence, yet much of it may easily 
receive, and often does receive in the reading, the move- 
ment of some of the simpler measures of English poetry. 
It is common, for example, to hear such verses as the 
following read as though they were composed in trochaic 
movement :— 



1899 



VARIETIES OF JAPANESE VERSE 



719 



Nikumarete 

NiJcumi kaesu na 
Nikumarero 

Nikumi nikumare 
Hateshi nakereba. 

Hated though you be, 

Hate for hate do not return ; 

Hatred given accept. 

If for hatred you give hate, 
Then to hating comes no end. 

So, in a Buddhist hymn, Nori no Hatsune (The Dominant 
Note of the Law), its lines generally take the rhythm of 
English anapestic verse, as : — 

Itazura goto ni hi too kasane ; 
Bokushiu ruten no tane wo maki ; 
Hakanaku kono yo ivo s'gosu ?iari, etc. 

In spending my days chasing things that are trifles ; 
In sowing the seed of the six-fold migration ; 
I pass through the world with my life purpose 
baffled, etc. 

However, speaking broadly, the prosody dominant in 
Western poetry does not appear in the poetry of Japan, 
except, we may say, through the influence of a natural, 
but unacknowledged, rhythmic instinct. 

Again, in the construction of Japanese verse there are 
certain special rhetorical oddities, such as redundant ex- 
pletives and phrases, called " Pillow- words " and " Intro- 
ductions," that are of especial importance in a study of this 
poetry. These expressions are purely conventional orna- 
ments or euphonisms. Much of the superior merit of this 
verse-writing depends also upon a serious use of puns and 
of other word-plays. By way of description of these 
special verbal devices let me repeat the words of an 
honored member of this society, Professor Chamberlain, as 
given in an essay read here more than twenty years ago. 
(Transactions. Vol. V. p. 81.) The " Pillow-words " says 
Prof. Chamberlain, " are as a rule, simple epithets that 
w 7 ere formerly applied quite naturally and appropriately 



720 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



to various objects, places and actions, but which in most 
cases by the process of phonetic decay, by being used in 
connection with the expressions having but a very distant 
affinity to the expressions they originally served to define/' 
etc , " have become almost unrecognisable and practically 
devoid of meaning.' ' " They are prefixed to other words 
merely for the sake of euphony. Almost every word of 
note has some ' Pillow-word/ " Dr. W. G. Aston in his 
admirable work on " Japanese Literature " names " Pil- 
low-words " " stock conventional epithets," something 
after the fashion of Homer's ' swift-footed ' Achilles, or 
4 many-fountained ' Ida." They are " survivals from a 
very archaic stage of the language." 

The special " Pillow-words," " Introductions " or " Pre- 
faces " used in the Hyakunin-issliii will properly be noticed 
as they occur in the following pages. Here, by way of 
illustration of w 7 hathas been said, it will suffice to note the 
" first part " of the Third Song of the collection. This 
tanka contains the " Pillow- w r ord," ashibiki no, " foot- 
drawing " associated with yania dori, " mountain 
pheasant." The first part of the tanka is a "Preface" 
for the sentiment that follows. Ashibiki no xjama dori no 
o no sliidari o no, is literally, "the downward curving 
feathers of the foot-drawing mountain-pheasant;" a phrase 
practically meaningless as here used, except as it may be a 
combination of sound and thought that tends to intensify 
and to fix the dreary plaint of the second " part " of the 
tanka, which tells of the loneliness of the long, long night. 

Another very common special device in Japanese poetry 
is the use of the pun, or of kenydgen, a word subjected to 
two definitions, to convey the writer's meaning. This 
interpretation is thereby often accomplished gracefully and 
with special clearness. At times the kenyogen occasions 
most agreeable intellectual surprises. In the Tenth tanka, 
for example, the poet helps along his meaning quite 
pleasantly with play upon the word-sound, " Osaka, 1 ' 
which means, as thus written," Great Hill," or "Slope," 
and, when written " Aasaka," " Hill of Meeting." The 
game fact is true of like words in many others of the songs. 

A third word-play of little worth, and considerably 



1899 



ODDITIES OF JAPANESE POETRY 



721 



wanting in dignity to Western literary judgment, is the 
use of so-called " Pivot-words." These words serve to 
complete one thought and to begin another, neither having 
logical connection with the other. As such words occur 
they will be explained in the notes that follow. Here, this 
English sentence may serve to illustrate how a " Pivot- 
word " works : — " As the chariot approached, I said to 
the driver, ' Alight ! 9 (a light) that guides our footsteps 
through the dark ways." The command " Alight ! " to 
" descend " has the same sound as the words, <c a light," 
that " guides ; " but between the two there is no logical 
connection. Yet, while the word closes the sentence of 
command, it serves, also, to open the descriptive passage 
that follows. Speaking of these and other word-plays 
special to Japanese serious poetry, Professor Chamberlain 
remarks : — " There is nothing in the nature of things 
constraining us to associate plays upon words with the 
ridiculous. Each literature must be a law unto itself." 

The subject-matter, or content, of the poetry of the 
Japanese, to characterize it generally, is simple and, 
ordinarily, serene emotion in reference to persons, or to 
objects in nature. Still broadly characterizing it, — it is, in 
general quality of expression, in a high degree, refined, 
dainty, elegant and subdued. It is meditative, not didac- 
tive. It is suggestive and impressionist, like J apanese paint- 
ing. It is given over to small fancies wrought under the 
lyric impulse. Poetic imagination, as known in the West, 
has no place in Japanese verse. There never could have been 
a Dante, Milton, Shelley, Wordsworth or Browning under 
Japanese poetic limitations. Poetry is not, in Japan, 
a means chosen for sounding and recording the depths of 
profound spiritual experience. It has never been, and 
could ;not be, the vehicle of an epic. 

Yoshida Kenko, in Fourteenth Century, wrote in his de- 
lightful reveries, called " Weeds of Idleness" (Tsure-zure 
gusa) ; — " Japanese poetry is especially charming. Even 
the toil of an awkward peasant or of a woodman, ex- 
pressed in poetic form, delights the mind. The name of 
the terrible wild boar, also, when styled 'fusui no toko ' 
sounds elegant." This passage seems to disclose the 



722 



ESSAYS IN LITEBATUEE PAET Y 



Japanese poetic "charm,"— an effect produced by the 
embodiment of simple fancies in brief, refined speech. 

Ki no Tsurayuki, long before Kenko's time, wrote 
in his preface to the Kokinslm, — " Poetry began when 
heaven and earth were created. In the age of the swift 
gods it would seem that as yet there was no established 
metre. Their poetry was artless in form and hard of 
comprehension. It was in the age of man that Susa- 
no-o made the first poetry of thiity and one syllables. 
And so, by the vain multiplication of our thoughts and 
language we came to express our love for flowers, our envy 
of birds, our emotion at the sight of the hazes which 
usher in the spring, or our grief at beholding the dew. As 
a distant journey is begun by our first footsteps and goes 
on for months and years ; as a high mountain has its 
beginning in the dust of its base and at length arises aloft 
and extends across the sky like the clouds of heaven, so 
gradual must have been the rise of poetry." Tsurayuki 
thus also discloses the Japanese poetic ideal, — the com- 
monest notions in the form of simple but refined verse as 
patterned for man by a god in the far past. In Tsura- 
yuki^ catalogue of the themes which through poetic ex- 
pression had " soothed the hearts of the Emperors and the 
great men of Japan in bygone days," he does not 
anywhere carry the reader beyond such things as, joy in 
spring flowers, and in autumn moons, and their like ; 
beyond love, eternal as Mount Fuji's smoke, or yearning 
like a cricket's cry, and grief made deeper by flowers shed 
from their stalks in the spring, or leaves falling in autumn. 

All his long list of themes lies on the same level of thought 
and feeling. " Poetry/' he said, "drew its metaphors 
from the waves and the fir-clad mountains, or the spring 
of water in the midst of the moor. Poets gazed on the 
under leaves of the autumn lespedeza, or counted the times 
a snipe preens its feathers at dawn, or compared mankind 
to a joint of bamboo floating down a stream, or expressed 
their disgust with the world by the simile of the river 
Yoshino, or heard that the smoke no longer rises from the 
Mount Fuji." Beyond these things Japanese poetry 
does not go. It remains where, according to Western ideals 



1899 POETRY IN THE " NARA AGE " 723 



and aims ; poetry is but little advanced from the place of 
its beginnings, or where its highest excellence consists in 
merely the refinement of rudimentary form and content. 

In carrying on our study, it is desirable that we should 
have in mind, further, somewhat the circle of men and 
women in which devotion to poetic composition was 
dominant, and also the social environment of the writers. 

The HyakuniJi-isshu is a collection of verse whose parts 
date from the latter part of the Seventh to the beginning 
of the Thirteenth Centuries. Most of the songs were 
written in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries. Throughout 
most of the period covered by this anthology, the product- 
ion of poetry was one of the chief pastimes of the Imperial 
Court and of the members of the higher aristocracy. This 
fact, one readily sees, explains much that is characteristic 
of the compositions. Poetry was a polite accomplish- 
ment, and it varied with the varying fortunes of its exalted 
source. Before the Eighth Century, that is, " the age of 
Kara," the Imperial Capital was changed almost as often 
as the Emperors were changed. Court-life thus was conse- 
quently comparatively barren and commonplace. Pomp 
and grandeur were almost unknown, and luxury did not 
tempt to indolence and vice. At Nara, however, through 
the larger part of the Eighth Century, seven Emperors 
reigned in succession ; and on account of a growing 
intercourse with China court-life then became increasingly 
ceremonious and ornate. 

Towards the end of the Eighth Century, under the 
Emperor Kwammu, the site of Kyoto was chosen for the 
Imperial capital. Then the Imperial residence became 
fixed, to remain unchanged for eleven hundred years. 
At that time, too, and for the next four hundred years, 
the career of the Japanese aristocracy was one of in- 
creasing wealth and luxury. The comparatively un- 
polished, frugal and industrious habits of the Nara age 
by degrees disappeared. The ruling classes entered upon 
a career of high culture, refinement and elegance of life, 
that passed, however, in the $nd into an excess of luxury, 
debilitating effeminacy and dissipation. It w r as during 
the best part of these memorable centuries that Japanese 



724 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



literature, as belles-letters, culminated, leaving to aftertimes, 
even to the to the present day, models for pure Japan- 
ese diction. The court nobles of the Tenth, Eleventh 
and Twelfth Centuries had abundant leisure for the culture 
of letters. They devoted their time to that, and to the 
pursuit of whatever other refined or luxurious pleasures 
imagination could devise.. For instance, among the many 
notable intellectual dissipations of the age were re-unions 
at daybreak among the spring flowers, and boat rides 
during autumnal moon-lighted nights, by aristocratic 
devotees of music and verse, who vied with one another 
in exhibits of their skill with these arts. Narihira 
(No. 7), it is said, " the celebrated beau and dilettante of 
the times of the Emperors Montoku and Seiwa, was a 
typical specimen of these devotees of refinement and 
sensuous gratification. " In much of the verse of this 
" Century of Song," the sentimentality, the refinement 
and the laxity of morals of the pleasure-loving courtiers 
and aristocrats of the latter half of the Heian age (800- 
1186 a.d.) are exhibited. The poems are, in good part, 
an instructive comment on the life of the high classes of 
the times. 

The treatment of the Hyakunin-isshu offered in these 
pages is to be accepted as a literary rather than as a 
scholastic work. Here, results rather than processes have 
been given. Only such technical exegetical notes as are 
needed to make exceptionally obscure w T ords and pas- 
sages more intelligible, have been attached to the trans- 
lations. The translations themselves are, as strictly as 
is possible for English renderings, made literal, both in 
prose and in metrical form. The metrical renderings 
have been attempted as exact reproductions of the original 
measures of the taiika, and, where possible with fidelity 
to literalness, have been clothed in poetic terms. Some 
biographical information, and some illustrative comments 
upon the writer's meanings have been attached to each 
poem. These last named notes, it is hoped, will be found 
helpful and of special interest to readers generally. An 
attempt has also been made to give appropriate titles to 
the metrical translations. 



1899 CHIEF THEMES OF JAPANESE POETRT 725 



Now, taking these " Single Songs of a Hundred Poets/' 
as a whole, the reader will find that, broadly judged, they 
can be gathered, in accordance with their subject-matter, 
into three groups. Let us name these groups, 1. Nature, 
or .contemplation and description of scenes in the outer 
world ; 2. Sentiment, or moods associated with the milder 
human emotions, such as melancholy, pensiveness, regret, 
sympathy, contentment, gratitude, friendship, filial love, 
loyalty and the like. 3. A third group, belonging to the 
deeper ranges of emotion, but distinctive enough to be 
regarded separately, is composed of those poems which are 
an outburst of the passion, Love. Love-poems are in a 
high degree characteristic of Japanese, as of all other, 
poetry. In this collection, forty-six of the tanlca, nearly 
half of the songs, have for their motive, some phase of this 
great human passion. Twenty-nine of the taiika are 
given to the more ordinary sentiments ; and twenty-five to 
the scenes of nature. It will be well, however, in reading 
all these songs to remember that they need not be taken 
as transcripts of personal experiences. Most of them were 
creations for use in poetical contests and as exhibits of 
artistic skill. Often they may have had no other basis 
than the writers' fine fancies drawn from imagination's 
realm. 

We shall not here try to pass all the songs in review. 
Eeaders can examine them at their leisure in the following- 
pages. {Reference is here made to Vol. XXVII. Part IV, 
of the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, to 
ivhich this essay is the "Introduction") But, to illustrate 
the judgment just made, I call attention to a few songs 
which show some noticeable skill in form and mood, con- 
sidered as utterances of the Japanese muse. 

The Fourth tanka, for instance, is a delicate bit of 
suggestion and impressionism concerning a scene in 
nature. In its English form we will name it, " Beauty 
made Perfect." At the coast of Tago is one of Japan's 
very best sea and landscapes. Eising as its centre and 
crown is the " Peerless Mountain," Fuji. The scene is 
at any time one of supreme beauty. But the Japanese poet 
would add yet one touch to the consummate excellence. 



726 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



When to Tago's coast 

I my way have ta'en, and see 

Perfect whiteness laid 

On Mount Fuji's lofty peak 
By the drift of falling snow. 

So, also, in Song Seventeen where the poet celebrates 
the delight he felt at seeing the scarlet leaves of autumn 
floating upon the blue waters of the river Tatsuta. He 
recalls the wonderful age of tradition, when the gods, so it 
was said, held visible sway in the world ; and all marvels 
were seen and done. 

I have never heard 

That, e'en when the gods held sway 

In the ancient days, 

E'er was water bound with red 
Such as here in Tatta's stream. 

In tanka Twenty-two, there is a punning word-play 
that does not ill befit even serious verse. The word arashi 
may mean " a storm," or it may mean, "wild," or 
" violent." The poet wrote : — 

Since, 'tis by its breath 

Autumn's leaves of grass and trees 

Broken are and waste, 

Men may to the mountain wind 
Fitly give the name, " The Wild." 

A refined and delicate picturing of the magic wrought 
by the early frost of autumn is presented in Song Twenty- 
nine. 

If it were my wish 

White chrysanthemum to cull : — 

Puzzled by the frost 

Of the early autumn time, 

I, perchance, might pluck the flower. 

Then, an effect of a falling snow is beautifully and 
graphically shown in the Thirty-first tanka : — 



1S99 



SOME POEMS OF " NATURE " 



727 



At the break of day, 

Just as though the morning moDn 
Lightened the dim scene, 

Yoshino's fair hamlet lay 

In a haze of falling show. 

Again, the fancy of likening dew-drops to gems, such as 
is given in the Thirty-seventh Song is quite pleasing :— 

In the autumn fields, 

When the heedless winds blow 7 by 

O'er the pure- white dew, 

How the myriad, unstrung gems 
Everywhere are scattered round. 

Passing over the many other verses devoted to scenes 
in nature, let us turn from this group, w T ith a glimpse of 
" The; Beautiful World " given in the Ninety-third tanha. 
The writer was. we will suppose, on a lovely day seated 
near the sea-shore : — 

Would that this our world 
Might be ever as it is ! 

What a lovely scene ! 

See the fisherwoman's boat, 
Eope-drawn, row ? ed along the shore. 

The group containing uta expressive of the serene or 
milder sentiments, is quite varied in mood and merit. 
Song number five, is one of the most attractive of them 
all. It was inspired by the poet's hearing "a stag's cry 
in autumn " :— 

In the mountain depths, 

Treading through the crimson leaves, 

Cries the wandering stag. 

When I hear the lonely cry, 
Sad, — how sad, — the autumn is ! 

The Eleventh Song, how T ever, is one of deep, touching- 
feeling : — " An Exile's Farewell." It is an appeal to the 
insensate boats of the fishermen, the only objects, con- 



728 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



nected with human life, that witnessed the poet's unhappy 
start for the place to which he had been banished. 

O'er the wide, wide sea, 

Toward its many distant isles, 

Eowing I set forth. 

This, to all the world proclaim, 
O ye boats of fisher-folk ! 

In Japan, as elsewhere, sadness is especially associated 
with moonlight, and with the autumn among the seasons. 
And in Japan, under the Buddhist faith, a pessimistic 
tone is exceptionally prominent in literature. These facts 
will help to explain the Twenty-third tanka. 

Gazing at the moon 

Myriad things arise in thought, 

And my thoughts are sad : — 
Yet, 'tis not for me alone, 
That the autumn time has come. 

In the Twenty-eighth tanka, a mood accompanying a 
winter scene appears :— 

Winter loneliness 

In a mountain hamlet grows 

Only deeper, when 

Guests are gone, and leaves and grass 
Withered are : — so runs my thought. 

A longing for friendship, that inclines man in solitude 
to take even the lifeless things about him into his com- 
panionship, is beautifully shown in the Sixty-sixth tanka, 
in a personifying address to a solitary cherry-tree. 

Let us each for each 

Pitying hold tender thought, 

Mountain-cherry flower ! 

Other than thee, lonely flower, 
There is none I hold as friend. 

To one who has seen the pensive and exquisite beauty 
of the scenery near Suma, a peculiar charm pervades the 



1899 



SOME POEMS OF " SENTIMENT " 



729 



Eighth Song, — " A Night at Suma's Gate." In ancient 
times there was an Imperial barrier at the place. 

Guard of Sanaa's gate, 

From your sleep how many nights 
Have you waked, at cries 

Of the plaintive sanderlings 

Migrant from Awaji's isle? 

There is a note of hope in the Eighty-fourth Song, an 
agreeable departure from the general sadness of these 
poems of Sentiment £l The Transfigured Past." 

If I long should live, 

Then perchance the present days 

May be dear to me ;— 

Just as past time fraught with grief 
Now comes fondly back in thought. 

Many others of these poems of the sentiments are worth 
repeating as illustrative of our theme, but we will now 
turn to the third group, — that which is gathered about 
the mighty power moving in all human life,— Love. 

Tarika Thirteen tells of "Love Perfected." The poet uses 
the figure of a mountain rill becoming a full, serene river. 

From Tsukuba's peak 

Falling waters have become 
Mina's still, full flow. 

So, my love has grown to be :— 

Like the river's quiet deeps. 

In tanka Sixteen, by means of two word-plays, — one 
upon the word Inaba, a mountain, or district bearing this 
name, to which the poet was going, and, also, being the 
phrase,' " if I go ; " the other play being upon the word 
viatsu meaning " a pine tree," and to " wait," as one 
pining for another may " wait," — by means of these word- 
plays an assurance of " Faithful Love " is well given, 

Though we parted be, 

If on mount Inaba's peak 

I should hear the sound 

Of the pine-trees growing there, 
Back at once I'll make my way. 



730 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



In the Eighteenth Song, one of the distinctive devices 
of Japanese poetry, the " Preface " and euphonic " Intro- 
ductory-word " appear. In the English rendering the 
word " gathered " reproduces, approximately, this device. 
The first two lines of the stanza are to be regarded as 
purely introductory. The thsme is " Secret' Love." 

Lo ! the gathered waves 

On the shores of Sumi's bay ! 

E'en in gathered night, 

When in dreams I go to thee, 
I must shun the eyes of men. 

The solicitude of a woman about the safety of a man 
who had deserted her, showing thereby the self-effacement 
that love at times effects, is well expressed in the Thirty- 
eighth tanka. The lover had sworn to the gods that he 
would never desert his mistress. The wronged woman, 
therefore, feared that the gods might execute vengeance. 

Though forgotten now, 

For myself I do not care ; — 
He, by oath, was pledged ; 

And his life that is forsworn, 
Such a thing of pity is ! 

" Unconfessed Love " that betrays itself is the theme 
of the Fortieth Song : — 

Though I would conceal, 

In my face it yet appears, — 

My fond, secret love ; 

So much that he asks of me 

" Does not something trouble you? " 

" Love Perplexed " is pictured in the Forty-sixth Song 
under the simile of a mariner at sea with rudder lost. 

Like a mariner 

Sailing over Yura's strait 
With his rudder gone ; — 

Whither o'er the deep of love 

Lies the goal, I do not know. 

The recklessness that accompanies pursuit in love, and 



1899 



SOME POEMS OF " LOVE 99 



731 



the longing for continued life that comes with successful pos- 
session, are thus shown in the Fiftieth Song :-— 

For thy precious sake 

Once my eager life itself 

Was not dear to me. 

But, 'tis now my heart's desire, 
It may long, long years endure. 

Fearfulness concerning the future faithfulness of a lover 
just pledged, is told in these anxious verses of Song 
Fifty-four, — " A Woman's Judgment ; "— 

If, " not to forget " 

Will for you in future years 

Be too difficult, 

It were well this very day 

That my life, — ah me !— should close. 

Distrust ofonewhohas a reputation for insincerity and 
unfaithfulness finds place in tanka Seventy-two, under the 
guise of dread of the waves of the beach of Takashi. 

Well I know the fame 

Of the fickle waves that beat 

On Takashi's strand. 

Should I e'er go near that shore 
I should only wet my sleeves* 

Struggle to conceal a love that may not be shown to the 
one beloved, is admirably exhibited in the Eighty-ninth 
ta?ika, in an apostrope to self. The poet wrote 

Life ! Thou string of gems ! 

If thou art to end, break now ; 

For, if yet I live, 

All I do to hide my love, 

May at last grow weak and fail. 

These are but a few of the many songs of which Love, 
in some of its phases, is the theme. I shall quote only one 
more of them. It is the one written by the compiler of 
this anthology, the Hyakunin-isshu, the poet Teikakyo, or 
Sadaie. It is a vivid picture of a common scene on Awaji 



732 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



island, used in simile here to show the poet-lover's impa- 
tience in waiting : — 

Like the salt sea-weed 

Burning in the evening calm 

On Matsuo's shore, 

All my being is aglow 

Waiting one who does not comes. 

Here the introduction to this " Century of Song " may 
end and the way among the songs themselves be entered. 
No one knows better than the present writer, tha difficul- 
ties one meets with in making the venture here made, or 
how unsatisfactory the results gained. The full charm of 
these dainty bits of verse will forever elude the quest of one 
who, foreign to the Japanese people and their lan- 
guage, seeks to discover it, and to show it to the world. 
But I have done faithful service in my search, and I hope 
that some measure of attainment has been secured. 

Note. — " Introduction " to Translation of the Hyakmin-issku (Single 
Songs of a Hundred Poets) Vol. XXVII : Part IV., Transactions of the 
Asiatic Society of Japan. December, 1899. 



IV. 

I-EO-HA HYMN. 

I have long been interested in the fact — oris it tradition 
merely ? — that Kfikai, the wonder of Buddhist sainthood 
and scholarship of twelve hundred years ago, not only 
invented the popular script; of Japan, the Hiragana sylla- 
bary, but, also, so arranged the syllables that they may 
be read as a profoundly interpretative Buddhist poem. 
Every Japanese child in learning his alphabet may, there- 
fore, be taught to*, repeat it as a poem in which the 
conviction fundamental in Buddhism i3 graphically 
concentrated. 

Kilkai, who, two hundred years after his death received 
from the Emperor Daigo recognition for his marvellous 



1896 BUDDHISM IN THE JAPANESE SYLLABARY 733 



work by being given the title Kobo Daishi, or " Great 
Teacher who spread the Law abroad," placed the forty - 
seven syllables of the Japanese language in a melodic 
order, beginning, — I, ro, ha, ni, ho, he, to, chi, ri, nu, ru 9 
ico, — and so on, in succession to the end, — se, sn. Like 
A, B, G, D, E, F, G, etc , for the English, these syllables 
soon became fixed for the Japanese people as their alphabet. 

By very slight and legitimate linguistic changes in their 
reading, Kobe transformed '.this syllabary into a poem of 
eight lines, composed of standard seven and five syllabled 
verses in alternation, as follows :— 

Iro wa nioedo 

Chirinuru ico~ 
Wa g a yo tare zo 

Tsune naramu. 
Ui no oku-yama 

Kyo koete, 
AsaM yiwie miji 

Ei mo sezu. 

Eead in this form, the pessimism that may lead one to 
seek " the enlightenment which came through Buddha " is 
offered to all who read, and thereby becomes a perpetual 
lesson to every child in Japan. I cannot render into 
English verse a wholly exact translation of the original 
Japanese, but I have amused myself with putting into the 
original meter, in English, what is almost a literal repro- 
duction of Kobe's thought :— 

E 5 en though clothed in colors gay — 

Blossoms fall, alas ! 
Who then in this world of ours 

Will not likewise pass ? 
Crossing now the utmost verge 

Of a world that seems, 
My intoxication fails, — 

Fade my fleeting dreams. 

But this skilfully wrought alphabetic versification by 
Kukai, preparing, as it does, a w T hole people for an offered 



734 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



" gospel, " is repeated here only to introduce a yet more 
interesting piece of kindred verse-making. 

***** 

Several years ago my interest in this syllabary poem 
was much heightened by my coming across some verses, or 
rather a hymn, said to have been written about three 
hundred years before, by a noted priest named Kwai Han. 
The hymn stood under the title Nori no Hatsu-Ne, which 
may be translated, — " The Dominant Note of the Law." 

I found the hymn to be not only a profound and impres- 
sive series of religious meditations by a learned Buddhist, 
but also an entertaining literary curiosity. It is an acrostic 
of forty-seven verses having this peculiarity, that each verse 
begins with one of the Japanese syllables in the regular suc- 
cesssion of Kobo Daishi's alphabet. Kwai Han, it is said, 
wrote, substantially, the following note in connection with 
his acrostic hymn : — As Kobo Daishi composed the I-ro-ha 
that he might clearly teach the essential law of Buddha to 
the Japanese people, so will T, in honor of my spiritual 
ancestor, take these same I-ro-ha characters and make them 
the initials of the separate lines of a hymn which will carry 
forward the same pious object. 

It is impossible, of course, to render the hymn, in its 
acrostic form, into equivalent English, but I have attempted 
to give it, metrically, an equivalent English reproduction, 
with close adherence to its Japanese phrasing. 

Little annotation is needed for an understanding of 
the poem by English readers. It will help, however, for 
these readers to remember that in Buddhist mythology 
there are six possible transmigrations which the human 
being can make before he passess into the realm of those who 
are " saved." " The Eiver of Three Paths " is a Buddhist 
analogue of the river Styx of Roman mythology. " Namu 
Amida Buddha " is an invocation peculiar to the Buddhist 
sects whose followers rely upon the merits of the all 
merciful deity, Buddha Amida, for their release from the 
evils of existence. In the hymn it is called " The Prayer." 
The essential factors in Buddhism through which " The 
Way of Salvation " is secured are included in the terms, 
" Kite, Priesthood- and Buddha." And " The Land of 



1896 SYLLABARY ACROSTIC BUDDHIST HYMN 



735 



the Holy," Joclo — " The Pure Land/' — is the name which 
Kwai Han's sect has given to the abode of those who enter 
the Buddhist Heaven. It is believed also by many that 
when the Buddha was born into this world he slipped from 
his mothers lap on to a lotus-leaf, where, " up-pointing to- 
wards heaven, down-pointing 'neath heaven," he exclaimed 
that to him was given " power over all the heavens and 
the earth." 

The metric form of the Japanese verse used in this poem 
is a series of couplets of the seven and five syllabled standard 
verses, arranged in a kind of four footed anapestic rhythm, 
as is shown in these first three lines :— 

Itaziira goto ni hi too kasane ; 
Boku-shiyu suten no tane too maki ; 
Haka-naku kono yo too s'kasu nari. 

This is the movement of all the other verses of this 
strange 1-ro-ha hymn. 

j}j Jf* iji >}? 

The Dominant Note of the Law, 

In spending my days chasing things that are trifles ; 

In sowing the seed of the six transmigrations ; 

I pass through the world with my life-purpose baffled, 

Since gaining my birth among those that are human, 
Just now I have learned that I may become godlike ; 
So now I seek Buddha's help, trusting the promise. 

This world, after all,— it is only a dream-world ; 
And we, after all, are vain selves with dust mingled. 
Our jealousies, angers and scoffing reproaches, 
All evils we do, though disguised by our cunning, 
At last become massed like the bulk of a mountain, 
And we are crushed down to " The Eiver of Three 
Paths ; 

A fitting reward for our self-prompted actions, 
Whose ills each must bear, never blaming another. 



736 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



Live I a long life, — 'tis like flashing of lightning ; 
Live I but one life, — lo ! 'tis lived in a dream-world ; 
Grow I into one life with wife and with children, — 
The love of such one life abides but a moment. 

Think how to the depths has my heart been affected ! 
Engrossed by my bonds to a world that is fleeting, 
Naught led me to pray, — 1 1 Namu Amida Buddha'' 
As wind to the ear of a horse seemed the future ; 
Eeminded of death's blast, I answered, M When comes it ? ' 
The preacher I trusted not ; thought he spoke falsely ; 
And thus has my time sped to this very moment. 

I thought that desire brings good with fulfilment ;— 
Oh ! how I lament as I think of what has been. 

But yet in this troubled life comes consolation : — 
Adorable Buddha, enlightens the dark way ; 
Has pity on all tbose who live in these last days ; 
To all gives compassion and blessed redemption, 
Whose depth or whose height passes ocean or mountain. 
Thanksgiving forever to Buddha's salvation ; 
All bountiful, boundless, to me it is given. 
Up-pointing towards heaven, down-pointing 'neath 
heaven, 

The Buddha sheds lights upon all who are living. 

Now, knowing the Law as the Law has been given, 
The blest triple treasure, — Bite, Priesthood and Buddha,— 
I lift up my song, though I sing in a dream-world. 
If sorrow and knowing are both the mind's flowering ; 
If demon or Buddha with each is attendant ; 
Then let all my faith upon knowing be centered. 
Up-striving, away from " The Kiver of Three Paths," 
A glance at the Fulness Divine of all Goodness 
Will gladden my eyes, — the reward of my striving. 

Becite then the Prayer ; — for by its mere virtue 
Your pathway will enter the " Land of the Holy." 

Note. — Article written in 1896 ;— contributed to the Japan Magazine, 
September, 1913. 



JAPANESE NATIONAL ANTHEM. 



KIMI GA YO. 






1895 



LANDSCAPE SCENERY IN JAPAN 



737 



V. 

THIS JAPANESE LANDSCAPE. 

The scenery of Japan is unique. Like other scenery it 
shows the effe:ts of the working of nature-forces on the 
earth's surface, such as heights, depths, slopes and plains ; 
it presents a wide interspersion of forests, prairies, rivers, 
lakes, sea-shore and inland plateaus ; it shows, too, like 
most other landscapes, the effects of human presence in 
agriculture, mechanical industry, domestic life, and in varied 
enterprise undertaken on behalf of commerce and general 
social welfare. But, except in these universal features, the 
likeness of landscape in Japan to scenery in other lands for 
the main part disappears Japanese scenery has a charac- 
ter distinctively its own. In its myriad phases, displayed 
over a large range of territory extending from almost the 
arctic to the tropic zone, from sea-level to mountain peak, 
and during a year of extremes of seasonal change, there 
are qualities common almost throughout and distinctive of 
nearly the whole. There is, in fact, what may be named 
the Japanese Landscape. It is my wish to make some 
contribution, small though it may be, towards a closer ac- 
quaintance with, and to a more definite interpretation of, 
this landscape. 

i. 

Scientific Data. 

In order to clear the way, and to render more intelligible 
what I may say, I ask you to take with me a little excur- 
sion into the domain of science. The Japanese Landscape 
had its founding in certain happenings in terrestrial history 
by which Japan became geographically what it is. And 
the development, or elaboration, of the country's scenery 
into what now surrounds us has been mainly dependent 
upon the course of certain natural phenomena which never 
could have been what they were had not the geologic 
founding of Japan been just what it was. Physiography 
is not a very entertaining word, but in physiographic facts 
the treatment of our theme should begin. 



738 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



1. Geologic Founding of Japan. — To start at a real 
beginning, therefore, we should recognize the geologic fact, 
that what is called Japan is part of the edge of the inner 
rim of an immense depressed and submerged area of the 
earth's surface, — the largest depression in diameter and in 
depth of the world's crust. If you will look at a world- 
map, you will see that there is a barrier zone dividing con- 
tinents from sea, whose diameter is about one third the 
circumference of the globe ; which, roughly speaking, en- 
girdles the mass of waters named the Pacific and the 
Antarctic Oceans, and gives shores in part to three, and 
possibly to four, of the earth's continents. In this fact, 
merely, there is nothing of extraordinary moment. But 
there is a peculiarity in the formation of the Great Pacific 
Basin, extraordinary enough in itself to receive special atten- 
tion ; and, besides, it has a bearing upon the study of our 
subject of the highest importance. 

Measured absolutely, i.e. from the bottom of the 6cean 
to mountain summits, the rim or edge of this Great 
Basin, irregular as it is, has comparatively speaking but 
little inequality in elevation. Strangely, however, the basin 
as a whole has been in the course of ages tipped upward 
towards the east, or, rather, it has been sunken towards the 
west, so that its waters, taking a natural level, have left the 
rim of the basin eastward raised as a chain of lofty moun- 
tains extending all the way from Alaska to Patagonia, 
with summits nowhere low enough, to be submerged ; 
while, as another effect of the unequal depression, north- 
ward, to the west, and to the south, the ocean has risen 
upon the barrier rim, making it the wonderful succession of 
islands, large and small, long and short, high and low, 
that now extends all the way from Aleutia, through Japan, 
the Philippines, East Australia and New Zealand into the 
Antarctic region, where adventurous explorers have here 
and there landed upon what may be either continuing 
islands, or a Polar continent. Consequent upon this ex- 
traordinary elevation of the Pacific Basin eastward and its 
depression westward is the further important fact, that, 
relatively considered, this ocean's waters lie at no profound 
depths to the east, while in the sunken west and to the 



1895 



GEOLOGIC FOUNDING OF JAPAN 



739 



south the sounding line drops into vast abysses ; in fact 
directly off the coast of Japan the line sinks into greater 
depths, area considered, than have been yet found any- 
where else in the world. 

Another fact, of noteworthy importance in connection 
with our subject, is that in the northern half of the Great 
Basin there is an outer or second rim. This outer rim now 
lies far inland in both America and Asia. In America, it 
consists of the Rocky Mountain Ranges of Alaska, British 
Columbia and the United States. This outer rim becomes 
coalescent with the inner edge, the Sierra Nevadas, in the 
Sierra Madre of Mexico. In Asia, the outer border of the 
Pacific Basin is the mountain -chains extending from the 
Siberian Stanovoi, along the Manchurian and Chinese 
Khingan Ranges, through the hills of Siam, meeting the 
inner edge of the great depression, partially submerged in 
the equatorial archipelagoes. Within these outer and inner 
rims of the North Pacific Basin, lie, eastward, the highly 
elevated, arid plateaus of British Columbia and the United 
States, such as the so-called " Salt Lake Desert " ; in the 
west, corresponding depressed plateaus have become shal- 
low, flooded areas, such as the Behring, Okhotsk, Japan, 
Yellow, China, and Java seas, and low lying plains,— such 
as the Great China Delta. 

These are the main facts arising from the geologic found 
ing of Japan, that concern our present purpose. This 
island empire, then, is but part of the broken edge of an 
enormous area of unequal subsidence, which took place over 
a third of the earth's surface at some time in the terrestrial 
evolution. This irregular edge has become here a group of 
mountainous islands, washed from the eastward by the 
deepest waters in the world ; and to the west separated 
from the great Asian continent by troubled seas, whose 
depths are like those of lagoons when compared with the 
eastward abysses. 

2. Japan as Part of the Earth's great " Zone of Frac- 
tured — Another geologic fact bearing upon our subject 
is, that this barrier edge or rim of the Pacific Basin, divid- 
ing ocean depth from continental height, is an effect of a 
crumpling, or fracturing of the earth's surface. Professor 



740 



ESSAYS IN LITEEATUBE 



PART V 



Arnold Guyot called it the planet's " great zone of fracture. ,, 
As such, it is a line marking thinness or weakness in the 
world's enveloping crust. Assuming that the earth is a 
partially cooled mass of molten matter, we should natur- 
ally infer that this line of weakness would be the place 
where the confined molten mass, if anywhere, would find 
vent, either under the stress of its own forces, or from the 
pressure of the planet's contracting surface. Whatever may 
be geologically true, this at least is true, that on this rim 
of the Pacific Basin nearly all the volcanoes of recent 
geologic ages have appeared and are now active. There is 
another line of volcanic activity, modern in a geologic sense, 
which extends from Iceland to Arabia, across Europe. And 
there are also a few isolated volcanic centres, such as that 
of the Hawaiian Islands and the Azores. But, speaking 
generally, it may be said that the range of our planet's 
volcanic energy lies around the borders of the Pacific and 
the Antarctic Oceans, commanded by numerous splendid 
cones, like St. Elias to the North, the Antarctic Mt. 
Erebus, the Mexican Popocatapetl and the " Peerless 
Mountain," Fuji of Nippon. 

3. Meteorologic Phenomena. — Farther, meteorologically 
there are facts true of Japan, and closely related to the 
object of our theme, that demand attention full as much as 
the geologic founding and geographic character of the 
country. As a group of islands, Japan is subjected to the 
special influences which accompany the presence of sur- 
rounding bodies of water. As a succession of mountainous 
elevations, Japan has a climatic character very different 
from that which is associated with islands of small eleva- 
tion, such as those of the West Indian Archipelago. As 
a group of islands in the temperate zone stretched along, 
and close to the world's largest continental mass, Asia, 
•Japan's meteorologic conditions are very unlike those of the 
Polynesia of the equator, and of the continuing southward 
stretching island-border of the great Pacific Basin. 

To illustrate : — The air of islands is necessarily more or 
less moist. Over the wide plateaus west of the Bocky 
Mountains rise many mountain-ranges and isolated rock- 
groups. But no waves except those of dry sand wash the 



1895 GEOGRAPHIC AND METEOROLOGIC FACTS 741 



bases of those peaks and ranges, or flow into those island - 
valleys. Traversing the " American Desert " one may see 
nearly everything that this island-empire, Japan, displays ; 
that is, everything except water and the effects of which 
present water is the source. Landscape is there in shapes 
much as are visible throughout Japan ; but it is all in 
barrenness and desolation. There was a time, evidently, 
when the deeper plains there were the bottom of a sea, 
and when the elevations of that desert, on whose borders 
yet remain the marks of the shores of the ancient waters, 
were ranges of island-mountains showing in larger likeness 
w T hat we now see here. But, being a group of true islands, 
Japan receives every wind that blows from over water- 
covered depths. Whatever may be the direction from 
which the breezes come, they come more or less laden with 
the ocean's vapors. This fact is common to all the islands 
in the world, of course, but it is not true, also, that every 
island in the world is made up almost wholly of lofty 
ranges and peaks, of deep valleys and ravines. Yet, as 
you know, Japan is conspicuous among the world's lands 
as a land of mountains. About three-fourths of Japan's 
area may properly be called mountainous ; and I have heard 
that even fifteen-sixteenths of the extent of this island- 
empire rise as hill and height. 

Now, this extraordinary physical formation has a most 
noticeable effect, because of the moisture charged winds that 
blow here. Blow from where it may, the moving air rolls up 
mountain heights and sinks into deep ravines. Not only, 
therefore, is the air of this country moisture laden, but the 
lands of Japan, by reason of the condensing chill of the 
mountain peaks and valleys, are again and again, with 
frequent repetition, drenched by precipitated rain or snow. 
From Chishima to Kyushiu, Japan is a land of more than 
abundant — one may say, of excessive,— fall of moisture, 

Moreover, to be remembered with the fact just stated, as 
of noteworthy importance, is the manner of the precipita- 
tion. As said before, directly to the east of these islands are 
the deepest waters of the world ; to the west, excepting in a 
small part of the Japan Sea, are lagoon-like seas, in larger 
area hardly more than a hundred fathoms deep. Over the 



742 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



eastern abysses flows, near to the coast from the south- 
west, an ocean current, (Euro Shio), bearing with it the 
highly heated water of the equator. In summer the winds 
over most of the extent of Japan blow from the hot south, 
and across this heated ocean-stream. In winter, Japan's 
winds come almost steadily from arctic Siberia, across the 
easily chilled shallows of the Okhotsk and Japan seas. In 
the early summer, therefore, before the mountain ranges 
have lost their winter cold, and in the autumn as they are 
giving off their summer heat, the mountain-cooled south 
winds deluge the land with their condensing super-absorb- 
ed vapors ; while in the winter the dry, frigid Siberian 
blasts sweep, but little warmed and but little moistened, 
across the cold western waters. Excepting for the most part 
the western shores of the islands, they leave Japan's skies 
clear and the land dry. These islands, consequently, have 
a climate of summer wet, and of comparative winter dry- 
ness. In marked contrast are they, meteorologically, with 
the opposing American coast, w T here the relatively small 
amount of moisture precipitated, falls almost wholly during 
the months when Japan's skies are clear. 

These meteorologic phenomena have an importance of 
radical moment in their bearing upon our present subject. 
The geologic founding of Japan gave to this island-empire 
the beginnings of its unique forms of mountain heights 
and valleys, sea-shore outline, bays, promontories, inlets, 
sounds and island-groupings. But, had not the country's 
meteorology been what it is, these geologic masses would 
have remained in the barrenness and desolation consequent 
upon creation by volcano and earthquake alone. 

Consider what has followed the specific working of 
climatic forces. Ages of enormous precipitation, aided by 
the constant dash of the ocean's waves upon their bases, 
have eroded, dissolved, and washed down the jagged walls 
of rock which in far ancient times must have stood up 
everywhere precipitous from the depths of the seas. Prob- 
ably, too, more or less extensive alternate elevation and 
depression of the mountain masses occurred, making the 
constant disintegration, erosion, and denudation by the 
rain and waves more effective. By this means many low- 



1895 



SPECIFIC METEOROLOGIC EFFECTS 



743 



lying alluvial slopes and plains, — large, such as the one on 
which Tokyo stands, and small, such as we see in every 
mountain valley and in every ocean bay, — came into 
existence. The most ancient shattered mountain tops 
thus became more or less smoothed and rounded in outline, 
and the detritus of the heights was deposited in gently 
sloping, or level beds as far as to the sea's shores, and 
onward under the water, forming many shallow bays 
there. 

Another meteorologic consequence was the production 
of rivers, and streams, and lakes as numerous as there 
were channels in which water could flow, or depressions 
in which it might be held, Japan is a land of flowing 
waters. Eivers many are here, but not of great length, 
since these islands are narrow and steep, and quickly dis- 
charge their descending water into the sea. Lakes many 
are here, but few of them large, because great areas of 
deep depression do not exist among Japan's heights. The 
small hollows soon fill and overflow. Cascades and cata- 
racts innumerable exist here, since the down-flowing waters 
have many precipitous mountains and hill-heights to leap 
from. Indeed, nearly all the streams of Japan, excepting 
those of a few extended plains and where they near the 
ocean, are only cataracts and torrents. It is characteristic 
of most J apanese water-courses, moreover, that they are 
much wider and deeper than the streams which usually 
flow in them. This fact is consequent upon the unequal 
distribution of the enormous rainfall peculiar to Japan's 
seasons. The river channel that may be overflowed in 
August or September so that hundreds of square miles are 
covered with floods, may be in November or in March 
only a wide waste of sand, gravel and boulders, in the 
midst of which a narrow, shallow creek ripples seaward. 
There are river beds in Japan almost of mile width, in 
which, ordinarily, are seen rapid streams whose width may 
be measured by only hundreds of feet. 

A still further meteorologic consequence affecting the 
object of our study is the fact, that the excessive down- 
pour of rain upon the steep mountain-sides and the nar- 
row plains discharges the fallen waters into the ocean 



744 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



before they have precipitated the organic material they 
hold in solution. This fact has had much to do with the 
presence, in the waters of the bordering seas, of vast and 
varied quantities of fish and of other forms of marine life. 
This abounding sea-life has occasioned the existence of one 
of the most important of Japanese industries. And this 
industry is attended with spectacular effects of highly 
entertaining interest. 

Again, and of yet farther reaching importance, is the 
fact that, by reason of Japan's meteorologic character, 
there is probably no other country in the world where a 
more luxuriant vegetation tends to clothe hill, valley and 
plain. If there are seeds to grow, Japan's spring and summer 
rains and heat send them forward to their fullest and most 
prolific maturity. From south to north, with increasing 
richness and luxuriance, the Japanese islands are densely 
covered with verdure, wherever the hand of man does not 
check the abounding vegetation. And, to speak yet more 
to our purpose, the luxuriant vegetation of Japan is for the 
most part unlike that of other countries. Travelling, for 
example , over Central Japan, one sees trees, shrubs 
and herbage, native to both a far North and a far South, 
vigorous and abundant, everywhere interpersed. Even in 
the far North of Japan's main island, bamboo groves wave 
their graceful feathered shafts ; even to the southernmost 
verge of Kyushiu, the pine tree commands the scene. 

So far, then, as Nature is the source of the Japanese 
Landscape, these are facts to which I wish to call especial 
attention. Through geologic origin, geographic disposition, 
and meteorologic development, the scenery of Japan has 
received a character distinctively its own. 

4. Japan as modified by Man. — Yet, there is another 
force that has long been at work in these islands, and may 
not be ignored in an attempted characterization of J apan- 
ese scenery. Man has had much to do with giving to 
the country its unique landscape. In working out for 
themselves a specialized social and industrial career, and 
in conforming to peculiar political and religious institu- 
tions, the Japanese have, in the course of many centuries, 
made a distinct impress upon their physical surroundings. 



1895 JAPAN AS MODIFIED BY MAN 745 

For example, this people, for reasons we need not now 
give, have from time immemorial confined themselves, for 
their habitation, almost wholly to the sea-shores and the 
low-lying plains of the country ; they have as far as possible 
neglected the uplands and hills as home and town sites. 

Moreover, this people have been content from time im- 
memorial to live almost wholly upon the easily obtained 
and simple food-products of the sea and of the sea-border- 
ing swamp. In answer to their need for cereal foods, they 
have turned the gently inclined alluvial slopes of their 
country, almost everywhere, into rice-bearing morasses, 
flooded for most of the year from the numberless streams 
which flow from the rain-drenched mountains. In their 
search for animal food, they have covered their bays and 
the nearer expanse of the ocean with fleets, whose vessels 
have a model and ways of use not found on any other 
waters. The practical concentration of the nation's labor 
for food upon the growth of rice, and a search for fish, has 
left features of exceptional prominence upon land, and 
shore, and water. 

Then further, the monarchical and feudal civil system 
dominating this people has been, from time imme- 
morial, instrumental in bringing about noticeable physi- 
cal results for the dense population. This impress 
meets the eye at every turn. In some measure, to-day, 
the landscape effects of feudalism have been weak- 
ened or removed, but abundant traces are yet visible of 
the time when hundreds of daimyos castles, moated and 
walled, stood isolated upon plains and heights overlooking 
thick- clustered villages of laboring serfs and their surround- 
ing petty fiefs ; all together unique and dominant as 
elements of Japanese scenery. The great high roads of 
the country, too, such as the Tokaido and the Oshu Kaido, 
noticeable from being bordered for hundreds of miles by 
long arrays of single-streeted towns and villages: these 
connected by continuous stretches of lofty, evergreen trees, 
were also in large measure an outcome of the work of the 
political system peculiar to this people. On these roads, 
besides a subservient, ordinary, commercial traffic, was a 
constantly recurring journeying in recent centuries, of 



746 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



luxury loving, feudal lords, to and fro between provincial 
castle and Capital yashiki, seeking on the way as much as 
possible their comfort and pleasure. 

Again, affected by their religious mood and needs, the 
Japanese people, from a far past, have built, on their 
plains and among their hills, scores of thousands of 
shrines and temples, distinctive for themselves ; planting 
about nearly all these sacred places groves of trees, which 
in time have become, through a natural luxuriance of 
growth, splendid masses of verdure, lasting unchanged 
throughout the years. 

But I shall not continue cataloguing the marks made 
upon the landscape here through the work of man. They 
are many. Those noted will be sufficient for our purpose. 
I wish, however, to give renewed emphasis, before leaving 
this part of our theme, to an observation already made, 
namely, that throughout nearly all the extent of this 
country, whether the impress made upon the landscape is 
that of nature or of man, every extended prospect discloses, 
coup d'oeil, essentially the same features. It is chiefly in 
this continuity of characterization that landscape in 
Japan may be properly called the Japanese Landscape. 
A traveller over the length and breadth of these islands 
perceives the work of man everywhere as markedly the 
outcome of one range of motive. Let architecture, for ex- 
ample, be that of castle, of temple, or of house, he sees it 
not only as unlike its kind in any other land, but every- 
where as having had one model for each of these struc- 
tures — that is, in all that is of characterizing importance. 
From Yezo to Kyushiu, wherever feudal fortress, shrine, 
or dwelling place has been erected, each building usually 
is evidently a practical counterpart of the others. In 
agriculture, too, one economic system has disposed of the 
land after one plan, making all cultivated districts present 
the same class of division lines, grouping of tilled areas, 
and arrangement of shrubbery and grove. Nature and 
man have given to Japan a peculiar unity, or individuali- 
zation. I know no other land measuring more than a 
thousand miles of latitude of which this can be said with 
so much good reason. In this land of contrasts with other 



AESTHETICS OF JAPANESE SCENERY 747 



lands, one may t raved from the Hokkaido to Kyushiu, and, 
to speak broadly of his environment, may find that 
though the stars in his sky change, the scene around him 
remains the same. 

II. 

Artistic Characterization. 

But what, more definitely, is this unique landscape'? 
we may now ask. What shall be its specific qualification ? 

1. Variety, — For one thing, we may say by way of 
beginning its characterization, the Japanese Landscape is 
noticeable as showing variety, or diversity, throughout. 

Though it is the same throughout in virtue of a common 
order of qualities, the scenery of this country is yet varied 
everywhere with a diverse display of the many elements 
of which it is composed. The result could not be other- 
wise. 

Japan is in foundation, as we know, the broken, 
jagged crest of the greatest geologic fault on the earth's 
surface. In its beginnings, the country was crushed and 
tossed into chaotic masses by volcanic outbursts and 
primeval earthquakes, the rocky chaos becoming thousands 
of precipitous peaks and chasms. Further, these myriad 
disordered masses of height and depth were eroded, 
denuded, transformed, modified into a yet more manifold 
diversity of shapes by ages-long, excessive downpours from 
the skies ; and further, a most luxuriant vegetation, indi- 
genous and imported, growing wild and disposed of by 
man in later ages, gave a yet more complex character to 
the diverse whole. In Japan there is nowhere any 
monotony of view excepting, so to say, the monotony 
arising from an omnipresent repetition of a variety es- 
sentially of the same order. Travel where one may, and 
when one may, in this land, one is never wholly out of 
sight of mountain and sea-shore, hill and dale, stream 
and plain. One almost always has before him cloud- 
capped peak and horizon-bounding ocean, with countless 
shapes and things of nature lying between sea -beach and 
mountain-top. Were it not that the Japanese landscape 
is a veiled landscape, that is, a landscape usually softened, 



748 ESSAYS IN LITERATURE PART V 



and, in the far distances, dimmed, and often obscured by 
the haze consequent upon the excess of moisture held in 
suspension in the atmosphere, the spectator's eye would 
hardly ever fail to meet in panoramic view all the elements 
of which the earth's scenery is composed. Desert wastes 
like those of the African Sahara, or of the American Mo- 
have, — these alone filling the vision, — are of course nowhere 
disclosed. Horizon-bound plains like the steppes of 
Kussia, or the pathless morasses of Siberia are, necessarily, 
not to be met with. Nor are unbroken jungle-forests, 
such as those of mid-Africa, or of the Amazon valley, 
found among Japan's scenes. Always diversified, never 
monopolized by one or few objects, and never a monotone 
of forms or associations, is the Japanese Landscape. 

2. Vivacity and Serenity. — Closely connected with the 
first distinctive characteristic of the scenery of this country, 
are qualities, apparent everywhere, which may be figured 
as vivacity or cheerfulness, and serenity. Landscape 
here under normal conditions is in no way gloomy or 
violent. There is fantastic, even capricious, outline and 
mass in some of the mountain ranges, — at times these in 
excess. There is felt not seldom an impression tending to 
evoke a sense of sublimity, especially before some near 
views, say under lofty cliffs which plunge sheer into the 
ocean depths at the heads of promontories ; or before some 
of the walls which tower abruptly trom the recesses of 
mountain-fastnesses as parts of peaks that have not yet 
lost the marks of the volcanic and seismic forces which were 
active in their shaping. But, in characterizing Japanese 
scenery as such, one would err, I think, in ascribing to 
it grandeur or solemnity ; that which is awe-inspiring, or 
that which evokes the emotion of the sublime. The 
awful crags of the everlasting, snow-clad Alps, or the 
sublime domes of the Himalayas, have not their like even 
among Japan's mightiest mountains, the ranges of Hida. 
The landscape of these islands is far more appropriately 
distinguished as cheerful and serene, as bright and tran- 
quil, as exhilarating and peaceful. 

I shall never forget my first sight of Japan. It was in 
the early morning. Our ship had entered the lower Yedo 



1895 



VARIETY ; VIVACITY ; SERENITY 



749 



Bay. The sun was rising. On just such a morning, 
years before, I had entered theGibralter Straits. At both 
times my eyes first beheld fantastically formed mountains. 
But what a contrast between the two scenes, in their 
disclosures to me ! The brilliant sunlight in Japan 
made the waters of the bay look like chased and 
beaten gold ; a dazzling, exhilarating reflection from 
myriad rippling wavelets flashed before the sight ; 
and, not far away, the crenellated peaks of Noko- 
giriyama, radiant with the sun's rays, arose from the water's 
edge, bordering the eastern horizon with a long line of 
towers among whose gilded embrazures the sun-light flash- 
ed. That was a scene before which every part of feeling 
was mastered by a sense of glad elevation. Not so was it 
in the Gibraltar Straits. The rising sun was there, the 
rippling water, the not-distant shore, and the shore-bound- 
ing line of the broken, serrated peaks of the African mount- 
ains. But, quiet as was the view it was not one of cheer. 
The mountains from summits to base were illumined by 
the rising sun's rays, yet their whole aspect was dreary. 
The rippling water, even, did not relieve much the sombre- 
ness of those tawny, barren walls. Their reflected light 
was that of copper, rather than of gold. They were an arid 
waste. They sent out no gladdening invitation to the 
traveler from over the wide ocean. The shores of Japan, 
however, clad in their perennial verdure, greeted us with a 
cheery welcome. The shores in every direction were 
bright, and were astir with life. Villages nestled in the 
bays ; boats danced over the waters. And there, for the 
first time, I saw that one among the most effective elements 
of landscape, or rather seascape, in Japan, an outgoing 
fishing-fleet, a product of the industry which is made pos- 
sible in Japan by the abounding marine life crowding 
along its stream-laced shores. All like pleasing vivacity 
was absent from the barren shores of the north-west Ma- 
rocco coast. 

What I illustrate by this recollection of my first sight 
of Japan is characteristically true of the whole of Japan, 
as far as I know the country, The Myogi moun- 
tain range, for instance, — Titanic chaos of rock though 



750 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



it be,™ is neither gloomy nor dreary. It is rather fantastic, 
or grotesque. And remember, that this mass is clothed with 
emerald-tinted verdure, garlanded with vines, and enliven- 
ed flowing brooks and cascades. Its precipices, even, are 
bright with leaf and flower. Moreover, even the few de- 
solate spots of Japan, such as the Ojigoku of Hakone, 
are set in masses of ever-living green. There is the 
Oshi-dashi gawara, the sombre expanse of rock-lava 
which Asama-yama poured over its northern slopes 
a hundred years ago ; that is now rimmed at its very 
edge with a luxuriant, never-failing growth of tree, 
of shrub, and of flower and grass. Also, there is its 
weird companion-flow of mud and stone, which left many 
flat, cheerless miles of scene between Asama-yama's base 
and the idyllic Eoku-ri-hara to the north-east. That is to- 
day fast taking on an enlivening array of vegetation. 
Everywhere in this favored land, a prodigal nature hastens 
to lavish bright verdure upon whatever waste places may 
perchance be made by new outbursts of the devastating 
primeval forces that gave Japan being. 

3, Pictiiresqueness. — A third distinctive feature of the 
Japanese Landscape is its piduresqueness. I do not find 
scenery in this country common-place or prosaic anywhere. 
It is a treasure-land for artists. The variety and cheerful- 
ness which it discloses from sea-beach to mountain-peak 
are so connected with picture-like groupings of hill and 
dale, level and height, grove and field, stream and upland, 
that the artistic sense may unceasingly be gratified. Let 
the landscape be the work of nature alone, or of man and 
nature, its picture effects are inexhaustible. Italy is a land 
for the artistic eye ; so is the American New England ; 
and, as far as the work of man is concerned, Egypt and 
India are full of objects to please the picture-loving sight. 
But, in what both nature and man may do to make a 
land picturesque, no part of the world, so far as I have 
seen the world, surpasses that which is displayed in Japan. 

I need not repeat what I have said of the opulent, almost 
all-inclusive variedness and vivacity of the scenery here. 
Remembering that, we need but recall further, for one 
thing, the unique effects of the religious life of this people, 



1895 



PICTUKESQUENESS ; BEAUTY 



751 



shown in their temple architecture, its form and color ; 
and in the temple and shrine-settings, the evergreen 
groves of cryptomeria, pine, live oak and laurel. Then 
we need but recollect the unique picture-effects in Japanese 
scenery, made by the people in carrying on their peculiar 
industries. Think of their free, fenceless fields, and the 
irregular but graceful lines which give boundaries to their 
miniature areas of cultivated land ! Eemember too, the 
farm houses and their enclosures of dense, evergreen 
hedges, and their bamboo groves, producing rural scenes 
full as interesting as are made by the English cottage, or 
the German peasant-home ; and, from a Western point of 
view, even more available for artistic use ! Kecall also the 
sea-shore ! Even in Normandy, in England, or in Sicily, 
there is nowhere beach scenery so attractive, as along the 
coasts of Sagami, Suruga and many other Japanese bays, 
with fantastic sampans and junks lying high on the black 
and yellow sands, or, seen offshore, bounding over the blue 
waters under their square brown or yellow sails, laced and 
crinkled from top to bottom, hanging athwart the curving 
decks from low masts. But I need not extend these re- 
minders of the elements of Japan's picturesquences of 
scenery. They abound on every hand, from the petty 
paddy-field glinting in the angle of a grass or tree-clad 
dell, to the panoramic prospects of such marvels of pictur- 
esque scenery as enrapture one on the ridge of the Myojin- 
ga-take on the way from Miyanoshita to the great cryp- 
tomeria grove of the temple of Saijoji. 

4. Beauty. — Our theme at this point opens into many 
paths; many more than we can now take. I must there- 
fore hasten to bring these characterizations to a close. I 
offer, therefore, by way of a comprehensive qualification of 
the object of our theme, my judgment that there is not in 
any other country, landscape which, considered all in all, 
is more a thing of beauty than that of Japan. Beauty is 
the quality which, more than any other, includes what I 
believe is distinctive of the scenery of these islands. I use 
the term beautiful in its widest sense, as expressing the 
sum of those qualities which please the eye ; — variety, 
vivacity, picturesqueness, grace and their like. There is 



752 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



much that one sees in the Japanese Landscape that ex- 
cites admiration ; a good deal that at times arouses wonder, 
and, in some measure, awe, but there is little in any mea- 
sure, and there is nothing on a large scale, that gives rise 
to ennui, dislike, depression, or fear. There is, one may 
say, nothing in the landscape, as such, that repels, or does 
violence to, the aesthetic sense. Even waste hill-sides and 
mountain-tops, such as one sees between Osaka and . Kobe, 
are so much the exception in an otherwise omnipresent 
luxuriance of verdure, that the eye is rather surprised than 
repelled by the rare contrast thus made. But even there 
the outlines of those clay and sand-hills flow off in gentle 
undulations, and— specific tc our purpose,— are backed by 
lofty, evergreen mountains, while in the foreground rise 
verdant fields and picturesquely clustered groves of trees. 
Italy is a land of beautiful sea shore ; so is the Sierra-bound 
eastern coast of Spain ; but neither the Mediterranean 
bounds of Italy, or of Spain, busy the eye or cheer the mood 
like the ever-changing, and always novel, in-and-out curv- 
ing coast of Eastern Japan, especially the everywhere 
inviting and elusive borders of that shallow sound, the 
Inland Sea, which pass beyond green islets and islands 
almost numberless, and disappear inland among verdant 
headlands jutting out from close-lying mountain-chains, 
none of which shows treeless-slopes and desert-summits, 
like those rising along the Mediterranean coasts. 

I have stood upon the promontory of Taormina in 
Sicily, and have gazed for hours at the scene which has 
been called, in an artistic sense, the finest and the most 
beautiful in Europe. So far as panoramic effect is con- 
sidered, it certainly would be difficult to look upon a view in 
which more of beauty, — grand and lovely, — is disclosed than 
there. One is engirdled there by sea and land. Such sea 
and such land ! To the south and east extend, to the opaline 
horizon, the sapphire and chrysoprase deeps of the Mediter- 
ranean Sea ; directly to the south-west rises to a height of 
more than a thousand feet a wall of rough cliffs, — cut off in 
the near distance by almost sheer precipices ; between cliffs 
and sea a green-clad valley, sweeping southward from the 
Taormina plateau, ascends fifteen miles away to become Mt. 



1895 TAORMINA AND ETNA : TESSHUJI AND FUJI 753 



Etna. The mountain is drawn to a snow-clad summit eleven 
thousand feet up in the air ; and from that height the vol- 
cano's silvery vapor spreads into the clear azure of the sky. 
North-east and north, the blue sea is bounded by the 
gray Calabrian mountains ; the narrow Messina straits 
divides the mountains from the Sicilian hills. 

But beautiful as is the Taormina panorama, it does not 
surpass, — in some respects, indeed, it does not equal under 
like weather conditions, — its counterpart in the scenery of 
Japan. I speak of the panorama disclosed from above the 
temple of Tesshuji, a short distance off the road to the first 
burial place of Ieyasu, atKunozan. There, as at Taormina, 
one stands upon a height, and east and south stretches a wide 
expanse of water, not so rich in its color as the Mediterra- 
nean, but, under a fair sky, indescribably exquisite from 
the greens and azures covering its depths. Between the 
spectator and the sea, however, a wide expanse of rice 
fields, alight with the vivid emerald of the growing plants, 
fills the scene. At the sea-shore, instead of the little 
archipelago of black islets and rocks which cluster near the 
base of the Taormina promontory, there stretches out into 
the Suruga bay the curving, trident-like pine-clad bank of 
sand, Mio-no-matsubara, famed in song and art, bent 
around a bay within the bay, displaying line, and color of 
the utmost grace and purity. Eastward, across the sail* 
dotted blue of the green bay, instead of such a boundary 
as the barren, gray Calabrian hills, sweep far southward, 
densely covered with overgrowing trees, the mighty, yet 
quietly undulating, mountain-masses of the Izu peninsula. 
To the north lies the low angle of the valley of the Fuji- 
kawa, bordered on the east by softly-flowing mountain 
ranges ; while north-eastward are spread out the virescent 
shallows of the surf-edged bay from which rises up, with 
far mere beautiful outline than that of Etna, the great 
cone of the " Peerless Mountain" Fuji to a height of more 
than twelve thousand feet. 

I saw Etna in the early spring-time. Snow-crowned, 
it rested under a pearl-colored canopy wrought out 
of the volcano's rising vapor. I have seen clouds 
over Mt. Fuji simulate Etna's glory. I like most, 



754 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



however, to remember the view I once had of Japan's 
" divine mountain, " seeing it, as I saw Etna also, 
in the spring-time. Enamelled with spotless snow nearly 
half down its curving slopes, Fuji yama stood a clear cut, 
white-peaked and black-based cone, bared, without trace 
of cloud, under the infinite depths of the bright blue 
heavens. Around the globe, I do not think a scene more 
excellent than this, in grace of line or exquisiteness of 
color, can be found. 

Again, there are lakes, many in the world, famed for 
loveliness in themselves and from their surroundings. 
There are some scenes of which these lakes are cen- 
ters, that surpass in charm similarly composed land- 
scapes in this country. Switzerland and Italy are cele- 
brated in poetry and painting for the beauty and grandeur 
of Lucerne, Maggiore and Como. For the purpose now 
engaging us, however, comparison is not necessarily 
called for. Beauty is beauty wherever found. Yet, I think 
that for pure attractiveness and for fascinating delicacy of 
scene, one need not seek for a view to surpass the north- 
eastward prospect to be had at middle spring-time 
from the ruined rampart of the castle grounds at 
Hikone on Lake Biwa. The elements of this land- 
scape in the immediate foreground, as I recall them, are 
wide stretches, gracefully outlined, of water and reed- 
overgrown marshes ; these edging brilliantly colored 
fields golden with flowering millet, and emerald with 
the young growth of other grains. These fields gradu- 
ally rise in the near distance towards isolated terraced 
and tree-clad hillocks. The hills, in turn, stand out from 
lofty mountain ranges eastward. And, to the north, 
faintly seen, but with long undulations low across the 
horizon, losing their mass in the far distance, the southern- 
most summits of the " Alps of Japan, "—the ranges which 
culminate in the provinces of Etchu and Hida,— snow- 
covered, bound the fascinating view. 

Lakes Chuzenji and Hakone, for scenes composed almost 
wholly of lake and mountain, have exceptional charm ; the 
one held deep within forest-bound hills mirroring the 
grand, rounded crown of Nantaizan, the other resting 



1S95 



japan's annual flobal procession 755 



against grass and tree-clad slopes over which, near by, the 
matchless cone of Mt. Fuji commands sky and water. 

Then, for beauty of a high order, for beauty — indeed 
almost for sublimity — as disclosed among mountains only, 
he who has stood on the precipice overhanging the great 
chasm in the south walls of Nantaizan on the way from 
Nikko to Chuzenji, or who has been in the mountain- 
amphitheatre at Minobu overtowered by the sacred Shichi- 
menzan, has been encircled with a view unsurpassable in 
form ; and, in the early spring or autumn, in the highest 
degree, radiant with color. The awe-inspiring grandeur 
of gloomy, torrent-washed ravines, such as are to be found 
in the Swiss Alps, or in the choatic rcck-gorges of the 
Eocky Mountains is absent from these mountain depths, 
as, indeed, it is absent from nearly all the mountain re- 
cesses of Japan. In Japan, — even in the fastnesses of its 
mountains, — gracious effects, — such as gentle, or, at the 
worst, picturesque, forms, luxuriant vegetation, dashing 
brooks, leaping cascades, the most varied play of color, and 
other unforbidding things, meet the spectator's sight. 

And further, I would ill serve my attempted charac- 
terization of the Japanese Landscape should I omit a 
special word for the precession of flower and leaf-life that 
moves over the varied scene almost throughout the year. 
I refer now chiefly to the central and southern parts of the 
Empire. In mid- winter, even, the landscape stands cloth- 
ed in a green that, to the eye, is but little less luxuriant 
than the verdure of summer. Deciduous trees, though 
many, are comparatively few in this arboreal land. They 
are abundant enough to set many hill-sides alight with a 
more vivid green in the spring, and with scarlet and gold 
in the autumn. But even the fallen leaves of autumn do 
not lay bare the scene they glorify in their dying. The 
evergreen pines, cedars, firs and spruces, live-oaks, laurels, 
camellias, and, on the low lands especially, the bamboo 
and the manifold shrubbery cared for by man, stay on 
through the short winters unchanged in color. The rice 
fields are, for the most part, bared and black, but many 
other fields are covered with the intense green of young 
grain sprouts and of like vegetation. Even when snow falls 



756 



ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 



PART V 



over large districts, there is a heightened beauty of contrast- 
ing color and form, arising from the shining out of the 
abiding foliage from under its thin cover of white, also 
from the increased displays of the shapes of trees and 
shrubs given by the moulding of the snow to outlines of 
branch and leaf. Indeed, one of the most fascinating 
elements of the beauty of Japan's scenery is found in the 
distinctive revelations of the specific forms of tree, vine, 
shrub made by thick-clinging snow. Especially the bam- 
boo, banana and palm, — migrants from the tropics, — when 
covered by the plastic snow give the eye a much increased 
pleasure. Then, yet more, should the snow come, as it 
often does come, during the weeks when the flowering 
plum, — herald of Japan's annual floral procession, — has 
put forth its bloom, the landscape, snowcovered, yet 
mantling from the presence of the lovely plum blossoms, 
presents a scene than which nothing in nature can be 
more entrancing. However, I would not forget or 
undervalue the transporting outburst of the cherry flowers 
in the early spring. Most of the cherry trees, putting 
forth their blossoms before they show their leaves, fill 
many an expanse of scene with a rosy hue perfect in 
purity and singleness of tone. Wide landscapes, such as 
that at Yoshino, and, to a less degree, such as that at 
Arashi-yama, are transfigured in the spring by the cherry 
bloom ; and thousands of near views, such as those of the 
Tokyo Shiba and Ueno parks ; such as one finds along the 
water courses at Mukojima, and Koganei, and at other 
public resorts ; and in private gardens all over the land, are 
made for a festal fortnight beautiful beyond description by 
the w T itchery of this most captivating among the floral 
fairies. Quickly following the going of the cherries come 
the wild azaleas setting the mountain-sides aglow with 
pink light, transforming such regions as Nikko and 
Karuizawa into lands of jubilee for a happy while. 
These are followed speedily by a host of spendthrift 
flowers which make of the upland meads gorgeous 
parterres throughout the summer ; and, as these fade 
away, the maple, chestnut, oak, beach, icho and other 
trees in countless places, with their transfigured foliage, 



J895 THE JAPANESE LANDSCAPE IN POETRY 757 



work out, over hill and valley, brilliant tapestries in green, 
scarlet, silver and gold fit for dream lands. 

I do not recall the succession of Japan's flowers that 
attends the care of man in myriad gardens and parks,— 
flowers such as the peonies, wistaria and the azaleas for 
the spring ; the irises and the lotus flowers of the summer, 
and the chrysanthemums of the autumn. These man- 
cared for flowers, it is true, greatly beautify the home and 
have a large part in the social life of the Japanese people ; 
but they do not have place in the Japanese Landscape as 
such. 

We shall now leave our theme. But, in leaving it, I 
wish to associate what I have said with some kindred 
thought, evoked from other minds by the same object. 
In so beautiful a land as this, naturally the people who 
hold it as their home, if at all sensitive from aesthetic 
endowment, would feel the charm which pervades their 
surroundings and would give expression to their delight 
And so it has been. The Japanese, as a people, are not 
only proud and fond of their native land, lout they have 
felt its baauty and unceasingly sung its praise. To the 
measure of their ability to express emotion, their pleasure 
over the scenes in nature surrounding them finds demon- 
stration in their art and literature. It would be difficult 
to use language embodying deeper rapture or expressing 
more joyous elation over natural beauty than that having 
place in their literature. I add to what I have said, 
therefore, a few renderings of the Japanese appreciation of 
the landscape scenes around them. I quote from para- 
phrases of the " Classical Poetry of the Japanese," made 
by one who has searched deeply this treasury of verse and 
wrought much from it in fitting form, — I refer to Prof. 
B.H. Chamberlain, a former president of this society. 

Hear, for example, these lines ascribed to the Emperor 
Jiyomei, of ancient times, celebrating his realm as seen 
from Mt. Kagu near his Nara home : — 

u Countless are the mountain-chains 
Tow'ring o'er Cipango's plains; 
But fairest is Mount Kagu's peak, 
Whose heavenward soaring heights I seek 
And gaze on all my realms beneath>~ 



758 



ESSAYS IN LITEEATUEE 



PAET Y 



Gaze On the land where vapours wreathe 
O'er many a cot ; gaze on the sea, 
Where cry the sea-gulls merrily. 
Yes ! 'tis a very pleasant land, 
Fill'd with joy on either hand, 
Sweeter than aught beneath the sky, 
Dear islands of the dragon fly ! " 

In a celebrated lyric drama, entitled "The Robe of 
Feathers," there is much highly wrought praise of a land- 
scape of which I have already spoken at some length, 
that of which Mio-no-matsubara forms part. Listen to 
these few verses describing the unwillingness, for the 
moment, of the earth-bound moon-fairy to leave the 
enrapturing scene ; — 

" Heaven hath its joys, but there is beauty here. 

Blow, blow, ye winds 1 that the white cloud -belts driv'n 

Around my path may bar my homeward way : 

Nor yet would I return to heav'n 

But here on Mio's pine-clad shore I'd stray/' 

Like specific localized tributes abound in this ancient 
poetry. I cannot now reproduce them. But this picture 
I would attach to one place to which I have referred : — 

"Beauteous is the woody mountain 

Of imperial Yoshino ; 
Fair and limpid is the fountain, 

Dashing to the vale below." 

And these verses, among many which have the seasons 
for their themes, are well worth reading : — 

" Spring his gentle beams is flinging 

O'er Kasuga's ivy-tangled lea ; 
To the hills the mists are clinging, 

Takamato's heights are ringing 
With the nightingale's first melody." 

These lines, having for their motive the crimson, fallen 
maple leaves of autumn, paint a good picture :— 

" E'en when on earth the thund'ring gods held sway, 
Was such a sight beheld ? Calm Tatsuta's flood, 
Stain'd as by Chinese art, with hues of blood, 
Kolls o'er Yamato's peaceful fields away." 



Fujiyama, of course, has often been the theme of 



1S95 



ANCIENT ODE TO MOUNT FUJI 



759 



poets' songs. This very ancient ode to the " Peerless 
Mountain" well bears repeating : — 

u There on tne border, where the land of Kai 
Doth touch the frontier of Suruga's land, 
A beauteous province stretch'd on either hand, 
See Fujiyama rear his head on high ! 

The clouds of heav'n inrev'rent wonder pause, 
Nor may the birds those giddy heights assay, 
Where melt thy snows amid thy fires away, 
Or thy fierce fires lie quench'd beneath thy snows. 

What name might fitly tell, what accents sing, 
. Thine awful, godlike grandeur ? 'Tis thy breast 
That holdeth JSarusawa's fiocd at rest ; 
Thy side whence Fujikawa's waters spring. 

Great Fujiyama, tow'ring to the sky ! 
A treasure art thou giv'n to mortal man, 
A god-protecter watching o'er Japan ; — 
On thee forever let me feast mine eye 1 " 

Bat our gatherings from these songs of the ancient 
rhapsodists of Japan, telling of the beauty and wonder 
of their home-land, must cease. I therefore close my 
paper with some verses from a poet of more than a 
thousand years ago: — 

" Our fathers lov'd to say 
That the bright gods with tender care enfold 

The fortunes of Japan, 
Blessing the land with many an holy spell ; 

And what they lov'd to tell 
We of this later age ourselves do prove ; 

For every living man 
May feast his eyes on tokens of their love." 

Note. — From the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, Vol. 
XXIII. December, 1395. 



APPENDICES 



BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE 



I may not say, as I once heard Dr. Henry W. Bellows, jestingly, 
say, "I have lived with pen in hand;" but it is true that, since I 
entered my " 'teens/' writing has been one of my habitual occupa- 
tions. 

As I emerged from childhood I became a prolific scribbler. 
I perpetrated " essays," " orations," ''poems " then ; and when I was 
not quite twelve years old, I elaborated even a " tragedy " entitled 
" The King and Robber," which was presented, — for so many 
"pins" admission, — on .a grocery-shop " counter," that had been 
stored in an unused barn. I have already written of how I was 
attracted in those years to the printing offices in my native town and 
had the privilege of contributing to the columns of our local papers. 

^fc. ^Jc yfL 

During my College course I was given the pleasure of seeing, 
under various names, several of my efforts in both prose and verse 
in our College periodical, The Nassau Literary Magazine. Also, I 
proposed the publication of The Nassau Herald, started as class-day 
annual in 1864, and was chairman of its first Editorial Committee. 

In the years since then I have done nothing more habitually 
than keep pen and pencil in use ; — to annotate my readings ; to 
translate from foreign languages, especially German, French and 
Japanese, information and ideas that pleased and instructed me ; and 
to try to embody my own knowledge, thoughts and feelings in intel- 
ligible and helpful forms of expression. I have made numerous 
rather pretentious ventures in authorship,— in philosophy, science and 
belles letters,— along with specific professional work as a minister 
and preacher; and I have at various times accumulated piles of 
manuscript which now seem to have had no more effective reason 
for being than a vigorous exercise of the brain and hand of the writer. 

Yet, a good deal that I have written has, in many ways and 
places, appeared in print. In the preceding pages a good deal of this 
printed matter has been gathered for convenient preservation in 
one group. 



764 



APPENDICES 



I do not intend to enumerate in this note a full list of writ- 
ings, either published or not, to which I have given specific titles ; 
but I think it will interest most of my friends to see, associated with 
the articles which have been put into the preceding pages, the names 
of what, to me, are some of the more important of my other 
published work. 

* * * * * 

As a parish minister, I wrote and rewrote more than five hundred 
sermons"; some of which were printed in the newspapers of the com- 
munities jn which they were delivered; a few of them having 
larger publicity. 

Among the subjects of special treatment in these published ser- 
mons were ; "The Need in this Community of a Rational Christian 
Church ; " r< Reason, the'Criterion of Religious Truth ; " " Pessimistic 
Skepticism ; 93 "A Lesson of Toleration ; 99 " The Church and the 
Masses;" "Christianity and Money Getting ; 99 "The Real Hell ; 99 
" Triumph over Death." 

The following named sermons and lectures, also received a 
rather wide publication : — " Dr. Channing," a " Horticultural Hall 
Lecture 93 appearing in " The Unitarian Review," 1877 5 " The Social 
Problem : Communism not its Solution ; 99 " The Religion of Evolu- 
tion ; 93 " The Evils of Gambling ; " " The Mission of Christianity to 
Dumb Animals;" "Moral Standards and the Drama;" "The 
Drama as a Social Educator;" "The Law and Order League;" 
" Charity Organization: the New Solution of the Charity Problem ; " 
"Woman Suffrage;" " Dorothea Dix ; " " Immortality in the Light 
of Physical Science;" "The Voices of Autumn;" "The Young 
Men's Christian Association ; " " Thanksgiving in the Midst of 
Individual and National Disaster;" "Why the Workingman does 
not go to Church ? ; 93 " Dangers of Modern Civilization ; 93 " Political 
Self Government;" "Purity, the Only Guarantee of National 
Success." 

* * * * * 

Then, wherever I have had residence, I have, as a matter of 
course, been interested in public affairs, social and municipal, and, 
as occasion prompted, have used the daily and weekly local press for 
the purpose of "speaking my mind; " as many signed articles in the 
local papers of Chambersburg, Rochester, W altham, Washington, 
St. Paul, Minneapolis, Tokyo and elsewhere, show. 



BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE 



765 



As editor of the Commercial Bulletin in Minneapolis, and as 
member of the " Board of Trade " of that city, I wrote and published 
numerous articles relating to commercial and municipal interests, and 
concerning questions of the day. 

As the correspondent of the Boston Transcript from Japan, 
between the years 1890 and 1900, I wrote many letters and special 
articles, some editorial, concerning " Things Japanese," and affairs in 
the Far East ; notably in relation to Japan's war with China, and to 
the American occupation of, and dealings with the Philippines. 

Iji iji ^ 5}i 

Among the more important of the pamphlet publications I have 
made since I came to Japan and have not given place among these 
" Memorials," are "The Truth about the War in Korea ; " " A Day 
in the ' Very Noble City,' Manila ; " " The Fruits of Imperialism," an 
address before the Massachusetts [Reform Club, 1902 ; " Woman in 
Japan ; " " Certain Traits of the Japanese Character ; " " Cause and 
Meaning of the Japan- Russia War; " " Japanese-Literature," an article 
in Warner's "The World's Best Literature ; " "Possibilities of the 
English Language for International Usage;" "A Daughter of the 
Samurai," a story illustrative of life in Old-new Japan ; " The Me- 
morial most Worthy of Our Patriot Dead ":— the American "Memo- 
rial Day " Address at Yokohama, May 30, 191 2. 

Besides these, there are numerous articles which I have publish- 
ed, in Japanese translation, in the "Magazine" and in the "Post 
Office Service " pamphlets of the earlier years of the Japan Unitarian 
Mission. 

* * * * * 

I have also adventured as the writer of some books :— 

1. "Christianity in History," pp. 102, 1891. Also published in 
Japanese translation. 

2. Hyakunin-isshu (Single Songs of a Hundred Poets), pp. 187, 
1899. Vol. 17, Pt. IV., "Transactions of The Asiatic Society of 
Japan." 

3. "Introductory Course in Japanese," pp. 596. First Edition, 
1896; Second Edition, 1906. 

4. " Thought and Fact for To-day," pp. 97, 1911. Also in Japanese 
translation, 191 1 ; and republished in America by the " International 
Peace Forum,'' under the title, "Present Day Problems," 1912. 



766 



"APPENDICES 



5. " The Faith of the Incarnation :— Historic and Ideal ; " with 
the sub-title, "Glimpses of the Beginnings, Development and Met- 
amorphoses of Christianity/' pp. 442, 1913:— a work in which I 
sought to embody " the matured result of a search, carried on since 
youth, for a satisfying answer to the question, ' What is really true 
of Christianity ?'" 



ir. 

EEEATA. 

The typographical composition of this book has been made by 
" compositors " who are practically unacquainted with the English 
language. Proof reading,— orthography,capitalization and punctuation, 
—consequently, has been unusually difficult. The managers of the 
printing company,— the Fuku'msha, — have been generously helpful 
towards securing a correct typography, but quite a number of errors 
have found place, this care notwithstanding. 

Most of the errors are self-corrective to the book's readers; but 
attention is called here to a few misprints of some importance. 

On page 9, third line from below, for " me " read " we " : on page 12, 
sixth stanza; in the second line, for u trust" read "dust": on page 16, 
line six, read " Presidents " : on page 28, line sixteen elide "is": on 
page 32, line seven from below, read " largely : on page 51, line nine, 
for " Alleghany" read "Allegheny": on page 64, line thirteen from 
below, elide one "not made": on page 113, line thirteen, for "d." read 
"e.": on page 119, line eight from below, read " Calthrop": on page 127, 
line nine from below, for " living " read "loving ": on page 161, line five, 
for "being" read "bring": on page 167, line sixteen from below read 
" called " : on page 176, line twelve from below, read " Darwin " : on page 
177, line sixteen, read " even " : on page 182, line seven, for " sA " read 
"As"; and on line eight, for "na" read "an": on page 199, line 
twenty, read "should": on page 207, line fourteen, for " al! to" read 
"to all" 4 on page 254, first line, for "e." read " : on page 
261, km seven, read "relinquished": on page 288, line four from 
below, read "successfully": on page 298, line twelve read, **If"; 
on page 333, line two, read " undergone ": on page 411, line twenty for 
Causality in " read " Causality is": on page 515, line eight from below, 
rend " lecturers ": on page 597, line four, for " to " read " too ": on page 
615, line six read " conflict ": on page 665, for " 965 " read " 665 ": on 
page 681, line six, read recollect ": on page C89, line thirteen from 
below, for " their " read " there ": on page 693, line two, read "back- 
ground": and in the last line, for "to " read " too ". 



in 



INDEX 



Abbot, Francis quoted, 570. 
Abe, Isoo, 516, 

" A Big Load on Yonng Should- 
ers" ; an address, 584. 

"Absolute, the"; as a thought, 
370; as u positive" thought 
409 ; as that which can have no 
external limit, or external rela- 
tion, 405. 

Advanced Learning, School of, 
493. 

il A Good Cause maketh a Stout 
Heart ; " college graduation ora- 
tion, 48. 

Ahrens, Heinrich, 299. 

Ahura Mazda, 209. 

Akwinirnmi, Menomenee Indian, 
273. 

"Albert the Great," Scholastic 

leader, 431. 
Alcott, Amos Bronson, 191. 
Alcott, Miss Louisa M., 191. 
Alembert, Jean, 324. 
Alexander, Archibald, 39, quoted, 

61. 

Alexander, Stephen, 39. 

All Souls Church, Washington, 
D. C. ; organization from " First 
Unitarian Church," 236, # 256 ; 
corner-stone of new building 
laid, 234; letter from Board of 
Trustees of, 238 ; election as 
pastor of, 240: dedication of 
new building, 241; installation 
as pastor of, 242; sermon leav- 
ing old Church building for the 
new, 242 ; letter resigning 
pastorate of, 255 ; action of the 
Society upon the resignation, 
259; concerning this resignation, 
260-264. 

American Journal of Theology, 
article in, 521. 



American L^nitarian Association; 
first relation with, 105 ; address 
at Forty-seventh Anniversary of, 
182 ; represent it at Protestan- 
tenverein in Germany, 192 ; As- 
sociation invited to establish a 
mission in Japan, 504; appoint- 
ment to this mission, 454 ; object 
of the mission, 507 ; see " Japan 
Unitarian Mission." 

Ames, Mrs. Fanny B., 20. 

Amiel, Henri Frederic ; tribute to 
Krause, 194, 195. 11 a friend in 
the life of^the spirit," 195. 

Analysis and Synthesis, 376, not 
to be carried on separately if 
" certainty " in knowledge is 
sought, 376. 

Andersonville Military Prison, 
651 ; appointment to deliver 
Memorial Oration at, with de- 
dication of Rhode Island State 
monument, 648; horrors of the 
prison, 653 ; why remember 
Andersonville, 655. 

Angra Mainyu, 209. 

An Hegenerati peczare possint, 
Latin essay before Presbytery 
of Chicago, 55. 

Anselm, the Realist, and Church 
champion, 431; quoted con- 
cerning " God," 418 ; his funda- 
mental maxim for thinking, 431. 

Antietam battle of, 583. 

" Apology for Christianity; " a 
series of Christian Register ar- 
ticles, 142. 

"Appeal to John Brown;" ad- 
dress, 574. 

Appleton, John, 294. 

** Apprehension and Real Worth 
of the Principle of Philoso- 



768 



INDEX 



phy ; 99 a lecture, 399; the 
" Principle," what, 401, 419. 

Apprehension, or Perception, as 
second cognitive movement, 374. 

Aristotle, quoted, 305; 323. 

Army of the Union; first enlist- 
ment in, 33 ; second enlistment 
in, 44. 

Art, Medieval; origin of 444; 
characterized, 446. 

Assisi, Church of Saint Francis 
in, 449. 

Aston, W. G., 718, 720. 

Attention, as first voluntary 
mental movement, 373; 

Augustine, Bishop of Hippo ; 
influence of, 306 ; quoted con- 
cerning " God," 417 ; as 
" founder of the creed of the 
Western Church," 425. 

Bacon, Lord Francis ; influence of 
characterized, 167, 319; Bacon 
and Locke, influence of, 306 ; 
Bacon and Descartes, founders 
of " Modern Philosophy," 317, 
seq; " Exclusive Phenomenal- 
ism " as result of " Baconian 
method," 170; Schwegler's 
estimate of Bacon's work, 168 ; 
important limitation of Bacon's 
service to human thought, 169. 

Bain, Alexander, 361, 363, 366. 

Bartol, Cyrus A., 191. 

Bartolommeo, Fra, 445. 

Batchelor, George, 487; 514. 

Being ; u definition " of, 356 ; as 
ultimate thought, 405; "God," 
as Infiuite, Absolute Being, 412- 
415. 

Bellows, Henry W., 241 ; quoted, 
763. 

Bentham, Jeremy, 337. 

Berkeley, Bishop George, 321. 

Bibliography, personal, note, 763. 

Bixby, James T., 486. 

Boston Transcript, the, 765. 

" Broken Lights," 103. 

Brooke, Stopford A., quoted, 692. 

Browning, Mrs. E. B. quoted, 218. 

Brown, John; as ''Isaac Smith," 
574; " appeal" to, 574; attack 
on Harper's Ferry, 577, _ 



Buddhism ; when taken to Japan, 
466; present status of in Japan, 
533; Few Buddhism, 535; 
"East Asia Buddhist Society," 
534 ; coming conflict of Bud- 
dhism with Christianity, 548. 

Bulietii, the Commercial, 291 ; 765. 

" Bureau of Ethnology, Fifth 
Annual Report " of, 283. 

Btirnside, Ambrose E., 241, 606. 

Burlingame, Joseph P., 648. 

Burns, Robert, Genius and Work 
of; address, 679 ; elements in his 
genius, 681 ; his personal quali- 
ties, 685; emotional intensity, 
687 ; his intellectuality, 689 ; as 
poet of Scottish folk-life, 693; 
as poet for all mankind, 695. 

Bushnell, Horace; first knowledge 
of his thought, 63 ; influence in 
Western Congregationalism, 85 ; 
his comment on Morrison Coun- 
cil, 96. 

Butler, Benjamin F., 669. 

Butler, Bishop Joseph, study of 
his " Analogy of Religion; 
Natural and Revealed," 103. 

Calthrop, Samuel R., 119. 

Calvin, John, 210. 

Calvinism ; distress about in child- 
hood, 25; personal subjection to 
in College, 38 ; first public an- 
tagonism to, 120; in relation to 
the " Problem of Evil," 210. 

Cameron, Simon, 670. 

"Camp Curt'n," letter from, 
582. 

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, commun- 
ity, character of, 32. 

Carlyle, Thomas, 337; 699. 

Cartesianism, 327, 329. 

Causality as related to the God- 
idea, 411. 

Cause, notion of, 405 ; " God " as 
"Cause of the Universe," 411. 

Cerebral Psychology, 350. 

Certainty, when reached, 377. 

Chamberlain, B. H., quoted, 718 ; 
72.1 ; verses quoted, 757. 

Chambersburg ; my native town, 
14; its people, 14; burned by 



INDEX 



769 



Confederate cavalry, 51, 575 ; 

John Brown at, 577. 
Chambersburg Academy, primary 

education at, 28. 
" Champion of Truth, To a, 99 129. 
Chancellorsville ; description of, 

617; battle of, 614-630; taken 

prisoner at, 45 ; 621. 
Chaney, George L., 138. 
"Channing Memorial Hymn," 

230. 

" Channing, Dr., reference to lec- 
ture on, 761. 

Channing, William EL, 252. 

Cheney, Mrs. Edna D., 191. 

Chesterton, Gilbert K., 707. 

''Chestnut Street Club," 190. _ 

Childhood, my; social environ- 
ment in, 14; religious surround- 
ings of, 17 ; personal characteris- 
tics indicated in, 18 ; 70. 

Choice, what it is, 388. 

Christian Church, Japanese, 499. 

u Christian Consecration the 
Source of the True Life of our 
Churches ; " a lecture, 163. 

Christian Mission Work in Japan, 
worth of, 547. 

fi Christian Movement in Japan, 
The," 552. 

Christian Register, the; note in, 
258; Lincoln Centennial num- 
ber, 265. 

Christianity; " Apology for," 142 ; 
a religion rather than creed al 
confession, 146; its essential 
"radicalism," 143; the highest 
''Form of Religion," 150; in 
Modern Japan, 473; attitude of 
Japanese Government towards, 
500; prospect for Orthodox 
Christianity in Japan, 475; 
present status of Protestant 
Christianity in Japan, 539. 

" Christianity in History," 765. 

"Christmas Dav and All the 

• Year," 20. 

Church Fathers, traditional reve- 
rence for the, 66. 

Cimabue, Giovanni, 450. 

" Citizen Life in Memory of 1 our 
Honored Dead ; ' " an oration, 
648. 



; City Point, Virginia, 645. 
' Civil War, the; concern over its 
approach, 33; volunteered for 
at ''fall of Ft. Sumter," 33; the 
great issue of, 657 ; various 
dangers following, 659. 

Clarke, James Freeman, 13S ; 486. 

Clarke, George P., 259. 

" Close of Medieval Art of Paint- 
ing ; " a lecture, 440 ; influences 
affecting medieval painting, 442- 
445 ; the Crusades, 417 ; Cimabue 
and Giotto, 451; Fra Angelico 
and MasacciOj 453. 

Cobbe, Frances Power, personal 
influence of her book, " Broken 
Lights," 113. 

Cognition, what, 367; form and 
matter of, 368 ; Science of, 380. 

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 337. 

College ; entrance into, 29 ; at 
Dickinson, 31 ; at Princeton, 36 ; 
relfgious experiences at, 39, seq ; 
important personal factor indi- 
cated in class politics at Prince- 
ton, 69-74. 

Collier, Robert Laird, 119. 

Collyer, Robert ; visit to, 105 ; 
letters from, 1$7; 109 ; note bv, 
117. v / 

Colporteur, experience as, 40. 

" Common Sense Philosophy," 
334. 

Commercial Bulletin, the, 291. 

" Compensation ; " verse, 678. 

Comte, Auguste; quoted, 304; his 
" Cours de Philosophie Posi- 
tive," 336. 

Concept, or Xotion, 378. 

Condillac, Abbe, 323. 

Confession of Faith, personal, not 
satisfactory to Morrison Council, 
85. 

Confucianism in Japan, 467 ; 
present status of, 536. . 

Congregationalism ; first contact 
with, 45 ; decision to affiliate 
with, 66 ; invited to a " Con- 
gregational " pastorate, 79 ; 
refused installation over Church 
in Morrison, Illinois ; 85. 

Conscience ; personal subjection 
to, 71; as arbiter of choice, 391. 



770 



INDEX 



Conservatism in theology, impulse 

towards, 67. 
Construction, or verification, as 

mental movement, 377. 
" Conversion," my, and choice of 

the ministry as life-vocation, 

26. 

Council at Morrison, 83 ; corres- 
pondence concerning, 93. 

" Corner-Stone Hymn," 235. 

Cousin, Victor, 336. 

" Covenanter Church," Reformed 
Presbyterian, baptized into, 18. 

Creed ancestral, early influence of, 
23. 

" Criticism " in Modern Philoso- 
phy, 330 ; effects of, 332. 

"Critique of the Pure Reason," 
331. 

Crusades, the, 423 ; and Medieval 
Art, 447. 

Dall, Mrs. Caroline H., 191. # 

" Dante : Medieval Theologian 
and Philosophe r ; " a lecture, 
420 ; as theologian, 432 ; his 
" Credo" 435 ; as philosopher, 
437; quoted, 398. 

" Dark Ages, The," 420. 

"David, King, his meditation 
upon Man, 125. 

Davis, E. G., 235. 

Davis, Horace, 259. 

Davis, J. Merle, 555. 

Da Vinci, Leonardo, 410. 

" Decretals, The," 421 ; 435. 

Dedrich, Lieutenant, 643. 

Deduction, what, 376. 

Definition, meaning of, 358 ; illus- 
trated, 359. 

Demonology, 122. 

De Normandie, James, 241. 

Depere, Wisconsin ; beginning of 
my ministry at, 56 ; first official 
sermon at, 56-59 ; notable se- 
quence of sermon, 60. 

Descartes, Rene; place in Modern 
Philosophy, 166 ; and Spinoza, 
306 ; work of, 326. 

Detroit, Michigan, ministry at, 
114. 

Dewey, John, quoted, 349. 

" Dickens, Charles :-— An Apprecia- 



tion ; " a lecture, 696 ; biogra- 
phical sketch, 697; personal 
estimate, 699 ; as literary artist, 
701; his characteristic themes, 
707 ; place in our memory, 709. 

Dickens, Fielding, 706. 

Dickinson College; two years at, 
31 ; religious experiences at, 34 ; 
incident at concerning John 
Brown's " raid," 574. 

Diderot, Denis, 324. 

" Dignity of Human Nature, 
The"; sermon on, opposing 
Calvinism, 121. 

Ditheism, 209. 

Divergence antagonistic, in his- 
toric philosophic speculation, 
how avoid it, 340. 

Dole, Charles F., 487. 

"Dominant Note of the Law, 
The," a Buddhist hymn, 735. 

" Doom of Man, The," a Calvin- 
istic poem, 61. 

Doubleday, Abner, 615; 622. _ 

Donbt, as evidence of natural 
depravity, 64. 

Douglass, Frederick, 574. 

" Dreamers, The, among the North 
American Indians, as Illustra- 
tive of the Origin of Forms of 
Religion"; an address, 266- 
282 ; origin of the " Dreamers," 
274; ceremonial dance describ- 
ed, 268-273; doctrines of the 
cult, 275-276; how they illus- 
trate the origin of forms of 
religion, 277-282. 

Dresden, Germany, readings in 
philosophy there, 192. 

Droppers, Garrett, A., 506. 

Dualism, 209. 

Dun woody, W. P., 240. 

Eclecticism, 336, 
Edwards, Jonathan, 338, 
Eleventli Corps at Chancellors- 

ville, 618. 
Ellis, Rufus, 241. 
Eliot, Charles W., 556. 
Eliot, Samuel A., 550. 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 191; 

quoted, 246; 693. 
Empiricism ; development of, 323; 



INDEX 



771 



source of in Modern Philoso- 
phy, 327 ; contrasted with 
Idealism, 329; latelv, in Eng- 
land, 337. _ 

Enlistment in Union army; first 
33; second, 44; 582. 

Erdmann, Johann E-, appreciation 
of Krause, 195 ; quoted, 317; 322; 
again concerning Krause, 341. 

" Eucharist, The/' center of Me- 
dieval Theology, 427. 

Eucken, Rudolf; note on Panen- 
tJieism, 193 ; and Bergson, 553. 

Europe, special studies in, 192. 

Evangelical Protestantism in Ja- 
pan, present status of, 541. 

Everett, Charles Carroll; acquaint- 
ance with, 102; first letter 
from, 105 ; preached my instal- 
lation sermon at Waltham, 133 ; 
quoted, 301. 

Everett, Edward, quoted, 672. 

Everglades ; the Florida, 286. 

Evil, what, 390. 

"Evil, The Problem of," 209, 
seq. ) how solved by the Pro- 
phet Isaiah, XII, and 212. 

Evolution, Planetary, 213. 

Faith ; summary of my personal, 
. 141; consummate expression of 
my, 190- 

a Faith in God;" expository 
essay, 197-206. 

11 Faith in God; how compatible 
with the Fact of Evil ; " a 
Conference address, 207-226. 

Faith, the fundamental intellec- 
tual, 307; the ultimate, XII. 

" Faith of the Incarnation, The," 
227 ; 766. 

" Falling Spring Church," mem- 
bership in, 26. 

Farley, Frederick A., 241. 

" Father of Modern Philosophy " ; 
Descartes, 318. 

u Father of Positive Science " ; 
Lord Bacon, 318. 

Fenelon, Archbishop Francois de 
Salignac, concerning 11 God," 
418. 

Fetichism, 209. 

Feudalism, Japanese, 526. 



Fichte, Johann Gottlieb ; quoted, 
98; 303; his Subjective Ideal- 
ism, 333. 

" First Unitarian Church of 

Tokyo," 510. 
Fiske, John, 487. 
Flint, Kobert, quoted, 303. 
Flora in Japan, 755. 
Florida Everglades, the, 286. 
"Florida Seminole"; report to 
Smithsonian Institution, Bureau 
of Ethnology, 283. 
Forster, John, quoted, 709. 
Fra Angelico, 453. 
" Franklin County, Historical 

Sketch of" ; extract from, 14. 
Franklin Repository, the, 514. 
Frederick City, Maryland, 596. 
Fredericksburg, Virginia, battle 

at, 604. 
Freedom for the Will, 386. 
"Freedom in America;" verse, 
572. 

Freeman, E. L., 648. 
"Free Religious Association," 

membership in, 191. 
Friendly Society, the, 554; 556. 
" Friends," nearest in- the " life of 
the spirit " : — Robert Murray 
McCheyne, 40; Frederick Wil- 
liam Robertson, 141 ; Henri 
Frederic Amiel, 195. 
u Friends," who have helped 
me decisively in the way of 
thought : — Horace Bushnell, 63; 
Frederic Henry Hedge, 113 ; 
Karl Christian Frederic Krause, 
193. 

Froebel, Friedrich, relation to 

Krause, 194. 
Frothingham, Frederick, 119. 
Frothingham, O. B., 191. 
Fukuzawa, Yukichi, 504, 533. 
"Fundamental Data for Psycho- 
logy " ; a lecture, 343 ; ultimate 
psychologic datum, 345; im- 
plications of self-consciousness, 
354. 

Gannett, William C, 487. 
Garvin, Gov. L.F.C., 648. 
Gassendi, Pierre, 323. 
[ " General Order No. 47," 616. - 



772 



INDEX 



Genroku, Age of, 716. 

German migration to Pennsylva- 
nia in Eighteenth Century, 16. 

Germany, Modern Philosophy in, 
335. 

Geulincx, Arnold, 328. 

Gilfillan, J. B., 294. 

Gil man, Bradley, 556. 

Gilson, Miss Helen, 598*. 

Giotto di Bondone, 451. 

Gladden, Washington, comment 
on Morrison Council, 87. 

(i God ; " historic gradations of 
faith in, 198, seq\ thought of, 
406; "Idea" of, as Infinite, 
Absolute Being, 207, and 410; 
beyond all "demonstration," 
411; over all transcendent, 413; 
all inclusive and immanent, 
417; philosophic "Idea" of, 
419; "Idea" of, as sign of 
" Reality," 415. 

Good, definition of, 382 ; 

" Good, the," what, 385. 

Graduation ; from College, 48 ; 
from Theological Seminary, 51 ; 
80. 

Greek Catholicism in Japan, 

present status of, 538. 
Guinea's Station, Virginia, 625. 
Guyot, Arnold, 39, quoted, 740. 

Hachidaishu, 713. 
Hale, Edward Everett, 294. 
Hall, Edward EL, 242. 
Hamlin, Hannibal, 294. 
Hamilton, Sir William, quoted, 

301 ; 337. 
Hart, Hastings H., 294. 
Hartley, David, 321. 
Harper's Ferry, raid on, 576. 
Harpers Monthly, 700. 
Hartmann, Karl R. E. von, 336. 
Hawkes, Henry W., 486 ; 505 ; 508. 
u Heian Age," 724. 
Hedge, Frederic Henry, personal 

influence of his book, "Reason 

in Religion," 113. 
Hegel, Georg W. F,, " Absolute 

Idealism" of, 333; influence in 

England, 337. 
Hegelians, groups of, 335. 



Heidelberg University, attend lec- 
tures at, 192. 

Helvetius, Claude A., 323. 

Herald, the Nassau, 763. 

Herbart, Johann, F., 333. 

Herbartians, 336. 

Heresy, personal social conse- 
quences of my, 95. 

Heterodoxy, personal ignorance 
in child hood of, 100. 

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 
191. 

Hill, Thomas, 138; 294. 

Hirai, Kinza, 516. 

Hobbes, Thomas, 319 ; contrast 

with Spinoza, 329. 
Hodge,, Charles, 39. 
Hohlfeld, Paul, 192. 
Hokku, a kind of Japanese verse, 

718. 

Hoi bach, Baron d', Paul H. D., 324, 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 'poem, 
243. 

" Holy Roman Empire, the," 421. 

Hospital service, personal, in 
Civil War, 50. 

" How Charley Ramsey Spent a 
Saturday; " story of my child- 
hood, 19. 

Howe, Mrs. Julia Ward, 191. 

Hubbard, Gov. L,, 294. 

Humanity, probable evolution of, 
218. 

" Humphreys' Division," Army of 

the Union, 615. 
Hume, David 322. 
Huxley, Thomas, quoted, 326. 
Hyakunin-isshu, 765 ; origin of, 

715. 

"Ideas" and "Ideals," 373. 
" Ideal of Humanity, the " 194. 
Idealism, Modern ; subjective ; 

objective; absolute; 333. 
"Ideal, the Philosophic," 300; 

symbol of the ultimate truth, 

419. 

Imagination, the, 372. 
Imperial Tradition, the Japanese, 
467. 

"Imperial Eastern Association," 

535. 

Important personal factor, 69. 



ISDEX 



773 



H Incarnation, The Faith of the, 
Historic and Ideal," a study, 
227. 

Independent, the, quoted, 86; 116. 

Indian Census of 1880, 265. 

Induction, what, 376. 

Infinity; as a thought, 370; as a 
"positive" thought, 408, 410; 
though occasioned by experi- 
ence, can not be derived from 
it, 409. 

" In Libby Prison, out of it : Home 
again"; a lecture, 631-647; 
experience in the prison, 632- 
640; how release came, 641; 
march to City Point, 643 ; a pre- 
mature obituary, 647. 

" Innocent, with the Guilty ; " — 
an incident in the Civil War, 
611. 

Installation ; at Rochester, 119 ; at 
Waltham, 137 ; at Washington, 
242. 

" Installation Hymn/ 5 Waltham, 

Mass., 138. 
Institutions, value of, 312. 
"Intellectual Ideal, the," what, 

314. 

"Introductory Course in Japan- 
ese," 765. 
Intuition, what, 416. 
Lro-ha Hymn, 735. 
Ise, shrines at, 531. 
Islam, 279. 
Israel, Fielder, 241. 
Italy, winter in, 290. 

Jackson, "Stonewall," 617; wound- 
ed, 626; death, 639. 

Jackson's Corps, 623, 

Japan; early personal interest in, 
23 ; geographic extent of, 461 ; 
seclusion of, its cause, 469 ; 
reopening of, 469 ; new era for, 
471 ; landscape of, 737-759 ; 
poetry of, 710-732; religious 
problem in, 461-481 ; signs of 
promise in, 482-502 ; present 
clangers and need of, 557-570; 
Unitarian Mission in, 459-570. 

„ Japanese Landscape, The ; " an 
address, 737-759 ; geologic found- 
ing of Japan, 738; geography 



and meteorology of, 740-743 ; 
as modified by man, 744 ; 
aesthetics of, 747; some land- 
scape poetry, 757. 

Japanese National Hymn, 736. 

Japanese People ; origins of, 463 ; 
in what sense religious, 477. 

Japan Unitarian Mission; estab- 
lished, 503; personal appoint- 
ment to, 454; announced pur- 
pose of, 480 ; 507 ; form of 
organization of, 510; how receiv- 
ed, 513; position gained by, 
517 ; present status of, 550-557. 

" Japanese Poetry ; " an essay 710* 
732 ; ancient collections of, 713 ; 
most ancient poem, 717 ; varie- 
ties of verse, 719 ; oddities in 
composition of, 721; chief 
themes of, 725 ; a group of 
illustrative translations, 726» 
732. 

Jiyu Shin GakJo, 511. 
Jodo, "The Pure Land." 735. 
JoufTroy, Theodore S., 335. 
Judgment, the, and the Proposi- 
tion, 378. 

Kanamori, Tsurin, 486. 
Kanda, Saichiro, 503. 
Kaneko, Viscount Kentaro, 504. 
Kant, Immanuel; as "restorer of 

philosophy," 330; quoted, 303; 

influence in England, 337 ; his 

criticism of the " God-idea," 

414. 

" Karuizawa Hills," verse, 2. 

Kato, Hiroyuki, 504. 

Kennedy, James F., teacher and 

friend in childhood, 29. 
Kenyogen in Japanese poetry, 

720. 

King, Henry F., 79. 

Kishimoto, Nobuta, 486 ; 516. 

Ki no Tsurayuki, 712 ; quoted, 522. 

Knapp, Arthur May, 242; 487; 
505 ; quoted, 508. 

Kojunsha address, 557. 

Kojiki, 712; 717. 

Kofcinshu, 712. 
j Krause, Karl Christian Friederich, 
philosopher, 192 ; as reconciler 
of conflicting systems of philoso- 



774 



INDEX 



phy, 340; his system as philoso- 
phic universalism, 342 ; Erd- 
rnanu's judgment of, 341 ; 
Tiberghien's appreciation of, 
342 ; Panentheism of, 193 ; 
Anriel's admiration for, 194 ; 
especially for Krause's " Urbild 
der Menscheit " 195. 

Krauseanism; a proposed philoso- 
phic universalism, technically 
described as the " Subjective 
Analytic and Objective Synthe- 
tic Philosophy," 192-196 ; and 
339-343. 

Kukai, or Kobo Daishi, 732, 

Kwai Han, 734. 

Larnborn, Charles B., 294. 
Lamettrie, Julian Offray de, 324. 
"Lane, Jim," 669. 
Language, what, 352 ; 355. 
"Latter Day Saints; the," 279. 
Lawrance William I., 506 ; quoted, 
508. 

Law, what, 386. 

Lecture and sermon as candidate 
for license to preach, subjects 
Of, 55. 

Lectures, special, on Japan, 549. 
Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm von, 
329. .... 

" Letters from the Army," 581, seq. 
Lewes, George Henry, 338; quoted, 

304; 318; 322. 
Libby Prison, 631. 
Liberalism and Orthodoxy as 

separate domains of thought, 

102. _ 

Liberalism in religion, earliest 
personal record of, 34. 

License to preach, granted by 
Presbytery of Chicago, 55; with- 
drawal of, 88. 

Lieutenancy, promotion to, 609. 

" Lifes Progress from Form to 
Form;" sermon of farewell 
to the old Unitarian Church 
building, Washington, D. C, 

. 242-253. 

Limitations, spiritual and intel- 
lectual, as College student, 39. 

Lincoln, Abraham; reception at 
Hanisburg, Penn., 1861, 33; 



personal recollections of, 669 

seq; assassination of, 52, 666; 

dominant characteristics of, 

671,-674; warning from to the 

nation, 661. 
" Lincoln of Centennial Memory, 

the; " address before the Rhode 

Island Legislature, 665. 
Liscomb, William S., 506. 

Literature; Some Essays in," 

679—759. 
Literature, Japanese religious, 

497. 

Lititz, pupil in Moravian school 
at, 31. 

Little, Rev. Robert, 249. 

Locke, John, 320. 

Logic; what, 378; as formal 
science, 379; relation to Psy- 
chology, 379; real scope of, 380. 

Longfellow, Samuel, 191. 

Loring, Charles M., 292. 

Lotze, Rudolf Hermann, 336. 

Lowe, Charles; letter from, 106. 

" Loyal Legion of the United 
States, Military Order of," 583. 

Macaulay, Thomas Babbington, 
quoted, 559. 

McCauley, Isaac Hartman, quota- 
tion from his " Historical Sketch 
of Franklin County," 14. 

MacCauley, Annie Deane ; marri- 
age, 103 ; death, 6. 

McClellan, Gen, George B., 584. 

McCheyne Robert Murray; a a. 
friend in the life of the spirit," 
40; incidents concerning, 62; 
141. 

McClure, Alexander K., 574. 
McCormick Theological Seminary, 
51. 

McCosh, James, quoted, 348. 
McCrary, George W., letter from, 
294. 

MacDowell, Gen. Irvin, 669. 
McGill, Gov. Alexander, 294. 
Mackintosh, Sir James, quoted, 
320. 

Malebranche, Nicolas, 328 ; con- 
cerning " God," 418. 

" Man : his Relation to Force and 
Law ; " first public lecture, 109. 



INDEX 



775 



Man, as " microcosm," 396. 
Mamjoshu, 712. 
Marsh, George Perkins, 218. 
Marlineau, James; note by 171; 

quoted, 303 ; on Spinoza, 329 ; 

337 ; 361. 
Marye's Heights, 606. 
" Maryland Campaign, In the ; " 

a story of personal experience, 

584-597. 
Masaccio, Tommaso Gnidi, 454. 
Materialism, as philosophic 

"ideal," 325; and Exclusive 

Phenomenalism, 174. 
Materialists, modern, 336. 
Maurice, Frederic Den i son, 337 ; 

- quoted, 328 ; note on, 183. 
May, Joseph, 242. 

May, Samuel J., 119. 

"Medieval Art of Painting; the 

Close of;" a lecture, 440. 
Medieval Philosophy in Dante's 

- " Divine Comedy," 436. 
Medieval Theology in Dante's 

poem, 432. 
tf Meditations," verses from, 458. 
Meiji, or " Enlightened Peace," 

529 ; period of, 470. 
{' Memorial Hymn ; Dr. Chan- 

ning," 230. 
Memory, what, 348, 353. 
Menomenee Indians, visit to, 266. 
Met' Agona Stephanos; "After 

the Conflict the Crown; " verse, 

12. 

Metcalf, Richard, 138. 

Metchikini, Menomenee Indian, 
268; 273. 

Meterology, Japanese, 741. 

Methods ; Analytic and Synthetic, 
376 ; united in philosophy by 
Krause, 341; "Subjective Ana- 
lytic and Objective Synthetic 
Philosophy," 192. 

Mei-getsu-ki, 714. 

Michael Angelo, 4.40. 

Middle Ages, glance at, 423-425. 

Militia, college, member of, 33. 

Mill, James, 337. 

Mill John Stuart, 361; quoted, 

312; 361. 
Miller, Hugh, 102. 
Miller, Justice Samuel F., 294. 



Minami, Hajime, 553; 555. 

"Mind's Process in Thinking, 
the ; " a lecture, 364 ; genesis of 
cognition, conditions of, 368 ; 
an " ideal," what, 373; atten- 
tion, perception, determination. 
375 ; analysis, synthesis, con- 
struction, 377 ; concept, judg- 
ment, reasoning, 379; logic and 
psychology, 379. 

Mind, therefold activity of, 365. 

"Mind," or "Spirit," a superior 
generalization, 403. 

" Mind " and " Nature " as con- 
stituting the "Universe," 404. 

Ministry, the, choice of as life- 
vocation, 27. 

Minneapolis Art Society, lecture 
before, 440. 

Minneapolis and Saint Paul, 
residence in, 290. 

" Miserere of The New Testament, 
the," 222. 

Missions, Foreign ; desire as a 
child to engage in, 28; letter 
about when a College student, 
37. 

"Mission, Japan Unitarian;" 
invitation for its establishment, 
507 ; organization of, and pur- 
pose of, 508-520. 

" Missions Conference " in Tokyo, 
address at, 266. 

Mi to, Prince of, influence of, 527. 

Mivart, St George, 176. 

Modern Spirit, the," 318. 

Monotheism, Historic, course of, 
200-206. 

Monroe, Fortress, 646. 

Montana, stay in, in 1883, 290. 

Moody, DwightL., relations with, 
54. 

"Moral Obligation, Nature and 
Sources of ; " a lecture, 380-399 ; 
obligation, what, 381 ; the will 
as psychical spontaneity, 383; 
meaning of the term "good," 
385 ; " choice," what, 389 ; 
moral development, process of, 
393; moral freedom, wav to, 
397. J 

Morality; what, 391. 

Moravian school, pupil at, 31. 



776 



INDEX 



Mori Arinori, quoted, 532. 

Morrill, Justin S., 294. 

Morrison, Illinois ; first invita- 

; tion to Congregational Church 
at, declined, 80; acceptance of 
renewed invitation, 82 ; min- 

• r istry at, 82 ; action of Council 
to ordain pastor at, 83; com- 
ment on Council, 85-87 ; Church 
desires continuance of pastorate, 
84 ; decline third invitation, 91 ; 
correspondence over action of 
Council at, 93-99; special lec- 
ture at, 107. 

Murai, Tomoyoshi, 516. 

" My Ambition," a school-boy 
declamation, 20. 

Myers, Quartermaster General, 
interview with, 588. 

Mysticism and Symbolism, 443. 

Naga Ula ; kind of Japanese 
poetry, 718. 

Nakamura, Masanao, 504. 

Narihira, 724. 

Nara Epoch, 723. 

Nassau Herald, the, 763. 

Nassau Literary Majazine, the, 
646; 763. 

" Nature; " a superior generaliza- 
tion, 402; infinity of, in Space 
and Time, 406. 

Nebular Hypothesis, 213. 

Newcornb, Simon, 294. 

"New England Theology," warn- 
ed against in youth, 64. 

Nicene Creed, the, origin of, 421. 

Nihilism ; what, 304. 

Nihon Shoki, 712. 

Niishima, Joseph, 533. 

Nirvana, 475. 

Nori-no - Hatsu - Ne, a Japanese 
poem, 734. 

Northrop, Cyrus"; letter to, from 
orthodox clergymen concern- 
ing candidacy for chair of 
philosophy* in University of 
Minnesota, 293 ; invitation 
from, to deliver a course of 
lectures at the university, 299. 

North Western Presbyterian ; com- 
ment on Morris Dn Council, 87 ; 



on action of Chicago Presby- 
tery, 88 ; note in, 117. 

Northwestern Theological Semi- 
nary, student at, 51 ; graduate 
from, 80. 

Norton, Charles Eliot, note by, 3. 

Novum Qrganum, 319*. 

Obligation, Moral, what, 381. 

Obituary, a premature, 647. 

Occam, William of, reviver of 
Nominalism, 432. 

Occasionalism, 327. 

Ogasawara, Yoshiwo, 516. 

Okada, TetsuzD, 553. 

One Hundred and Twenty-Sixth 
Segiment, Pennsylvania Volun- 
teers, 583. 

Onishi, Hajime, 516. 

Ordination to ministry refused by 
Morrison Council, 83 ; why, 85. 

Ordnance Sergeant, Second Divi- 
sion, Ninth Army Corps; promo- 
tion as, 45 ; where and how, 585. 

Organism, what, 400. 

Orthodox and liberals, real bar- 
rier between, 101. 

Orthodox fellowship, beginnings 
of personal separation from, 99. 

Orthodox creed, conscious release 
from, 113. 

Orthodox Christianity in Japan, 
comment on, 475. 

Otherworldliness, distinctive of 
Medieval Christianity, 442. 

" Our Shrine and Fraternity ; " 
Phi Kappa Sigma Fraternity 
verse, 1861-62, 75. 

Pacific Basin, some peculiarities 
of, 738. 

Painting, Medieval Art of, 441. 

Paley, Archdeacon William, 
study of his " Natural Theo- 
logy," 103. 

Panentheism, 193. 

Papacy, the, Great Age of, 422; 
art patronage by, 444. 

Parsons, James C, 138. 

Pastorate, first invitation to a, 80. 

Paul, the Apostle, quotation 
from, 417. 

Peabodv, Francis G., 5X6. 

3- 



INDEX 



777 



Perception, sense, and rational 
ideas, 372. 

Perfect, the, thought of, 370. 

Personal characteristics ; as a 
child, 18-23; 70; illustrative 
incident of, at Princeton, 72. 

Personal attachments, embarrass- 
ment of, 71; 99. 

Perry, Commodore Matthew Cal- 
braith, 525 ; 528 ; personal in- 
terest in, as a child, 23. 

Petersburg, Virginia ; service in 
siege of, 50; release as prisoner 
of war at, 645. 

Pfleiderer, Otto, 486. 

Phenomenalism, Exclusive, 174, 
and 336. 

Phi Kappa Sigma Fraternity, 76 ; 
79. 

Philadelphian Society at Prince- 
ton College, 36. 

" Philosophic Ideal, the," 300. 

"Philosophic Vision, the," 314. 

"Philosophy, Apprehension and 
Real Worth of the Principle 
of; " a lecture, 399. 

Philosophy ; benefits of the study 
of, 308 ; objections to the study 
of, 302. 

Philosophy; early attraction to 
study of, 39. 

" Philosophy in the Present 
Age; " a lecture, 315; in 
Germany, 333; 335; in Scot- 
land, 334 ; in France, 336 ; in 
England, 337 ; in Italy and in 
Spain, 338; in the American 
United States, 339. 

Philosophy, Historic ; antago- 
nistic divergence in systems of, 
301 ; proposed conciliation for, 
340. 

Philosophy, Principle of, as both 
Thought and Objective Eeality, 
419. 

Philosophic divergence in modern 

speculation, 327. 
Philosophical Magazine, Japan, 

quoted, 543, 545. 
Physiological Psychology, 350. 
" Pillow and pivot words " in 

Japanese poetry, 720. 
" Plank Roads," 617. 



Plato and Aristotle, historic in- 
fluence of, 306. 

Pleasant Valley, Maryland, 598. 

Poetry, Japanese, peculiarities of, 
717; 720. 

Portuguese and Spaniards in 
Japan, 469. 

Pope, the; beginnings of tem- 
poral power of, 421 ; as lord of 
all Christendom, 423. 

Porter, Noah, quoted, 303. 

Powell, John Wesley, 294. 

Positivism, 336. 

Post Office Mission in Japan, 489. 
Presbyterian Church, Old School; 

ancestral church, 18 ; at Depere, 

Wisconsin, beginnings of my 

ministry in, 56. 
Presbyterian Church, New School; 

90; 92. 

Presbytery of Chicago ; licensed to 
preach by, 55 ; citation to 
appear before for trial, 88 ; with- 
drawal of license to preach by, 
88. 

Prince of Wales, (King Edward 
VII.), visit to United States, 
32. 

Princeton College; entrance into, 
36; religious experiences in, 
37, 47; membership in Whig 
Hall and Philadelphian Society, 
39, 47 ; character incident at, 
72 ; founded The Nassau Herald 
at, 763 ; oration at graduation 
from, 48. 

Principle, defined, 401. 

Prisoner of war at Chancellors- 
ville, 621. 

"Protestant Missions in Japan," 
Dr. Ritter quoted, 517. 

Protestantenverein, Germany, de- 
legate of American Unitarian 
Association to, 1874, 192. 

Prudence, as prescience of Moral 
Sense, 394. 

" Prudence, lack of," personal, 
before Presbytery of Chicago. 
94. 

Psychology, Associational, found- 
er of, 321. 

"Psychology, Fundamental Data 
for ; " a lecture, 343. 



778 



INDEX; 



Psychology, present day, 366. 
Psychology, sensational and phe- 
nomenal, 362. 
Psycho- Physics, 350, 
Pugh, Edwin, quoted, 707. 

Questions of Japanese inquirers 
to the Unitarian Mission, 488- 
490. 

Quilter, biographer of Giotto, 
quoted, 450 ; 455. 

Raphael, Sanzio, 440. 

Realism and Nominalism, 430. 

'{ Reality, the Ultimate," how 
far knowable, 177-181. 

Reason, the, 371. 

Reasoning and drawing of conclu- 
sions, 378. 

Receptivity, psychical, 369. 

Reld, Thomas, 334. 

" Religion, Forms of ; " Rochester 

- lectures, 130. 

Religion and Science, seeming 
conflict between them, 197. 

"Religion in Japan; Present 

, Condition of/' essay, 521 ; reli- 
gious heritage of Japan, 523; 
{Shinto, Buddhism, Confucian- 
ism, 525-536 ; Christianity, 537- 
539 ; religion in the Japanese 
student class, 545; outlook for 
rationalized religion, 477 ; pro- 
posed substitutes for religion, 
542; worth of Christian mission 
work in Japan, 547. 

Religious Conference, First Uni- 

- versal, in Japan, 494, and 518. 
Religious life; personal, how 

affected in College, 32 ; 46 ; in 
the army, 45. 
*' Religious Piir.ciple, the, Re- 
verence for in all its Develop- 
ments; " College composition, 
34; 

Remmm-KyOj 531. 
Renaissance, the, in philosophy, 
316. 

Reno, Gen. Jesse L., 596. 

" Restoration, the,"' in Japan, in 

1868, 537. 
" Revival of Letters, the," 316. 
Revival of 1857, 26, 



Reymond Du Bois, quoted; 350. r i 

Reynolds, Grindall, 242. 

Rhode Island Legislature, address 
before Houses of, on "Abraham 
Lincoln," 665. 

Rhode Island Memorial Monu- 
ment at Andersonville Prison, 
648. 

Rights, and duties, 392. 
Bikugo Zasshi, 491 ; 554. 
Ritter, H., quoted, 517. 
Robertson. Frederick W., a 

' friend in the life of the 

spirit," 141. 
Rochester Chronicle, the, note, 136. 
Rochester, New York; ministry at, 

119; close of the ministry at, 135. 
Rodes, Gen., 622. 
Romans, Epistle to the, fir^t 

natural reading of, 65. 
Roscellinus, the Nominalist, 431. 
Rosebery, Lord, quoted, 709. 
Royer Co Hard, Pierre Paul, 335. 
Roy, J. E., 83. 
Ruskin, John, quoted, 708. 
Ryobu, correlation of Buddhism 

and Shinto in Japan, 531. 

" Sacraments, the," 427. , 
Sadaie, or Teikakyo, 714; 731. 
Saint Francis ; " Espousal of, to 

Poverty," 452 ; Church of, at 

Assisi, 449. 
Saint Paul, Minnesota, Unity 

Church, pulpit supply of, 291. 
Saint Thomas Aquinas, 431. 
Saji, Jitsuuen, 516 ; 486. 
Sanetomo, 714. 

Saratoga, "Unitarian Uonference, 
1876, vote concerning new 
Unitarian Church at Washing- 
ton, D.C., 232. 

Sargent, John T., 191. 

Savage, Minot J., 487. 

Saxe, Asa, 119. 

Science, natural, early predilec- 
tion for, 39. 

Schelling, Friederich Wilhelm 
Joseph von, 333. 

Schleiermacher, Friederich Ernst 
Daniel, 336, 

Scholasticism, rise of, 428. 



INDEX 



779 



School of Liberal Theology, 

Tokyo, 480. 
Schoolmen, the, 426. 
Schopenhauer, Arthur, 336. 
" Science, 5 ' modern limitation of 

term to physical science, 171. 
" Scotch Irish, the;" who, 14; 

importance of in American 

history, 16. 
Schwegler, Albert, quoted, 319 : 

328. 

Self-consciousness ; ultimate psy- 
chologic datum, 345; a stage or 
degree of human development, 
352-353; some implications of, 
354. 

Self-estimate, value of, 70. 
Selfishness, prudent, 394. 
Seminole Indians; environment 

of 282—284; stay among, 282, 
Senshin Gaku'n, 493; 511; close 

of, 516. 

Sermon, first official, 56 ; a sequence 

of, 59. 
Sensation, 369. 

"Sentences Book of," Peter Lom- 
bard, 426. 

Seth, Andrew, quoted, 301 ; 309. 

Shairp, John Campbell, q loted, 
693. 

Shippen Rush R,, 241; 242; 
letters from, 258 and 262. 

Shirnada Saburo, 520. 

Shinto, 465; 525 ; 531. 

" Shinto, Pure," 472. 

Shogunate in Japan, the, estab- 
lishment of, 525. 

" Signs of Promise in Japan," a 
lecture, 4S1. 

"Sin," in relation to " Faith in 
God," 220. 

"Single Songs of a Hundred 
Poets;" translation for the 
Asiatic Soc:etv of Japan, 712; 
765. 

Simon Magus, 280. 
Skepticism, Absolute, 304. 
Skepticism, Philosophic, 322. 
Smithsonian Institution, Bureau 

of Ethnology ; collaborator for, 

265. 

Social Service among the Japan- 
ese, 497 ; 553; 555, 



"Soldier, A Year as," 44. 

Southcott, Joanna, 280. 

South Middlesex Conference, 
address at, 163. 

South Mountain, battle of, 597. 

"Space" and "Time" as "infi- 
nite ; " errors concerning, 373 ; 
"Nature" in relation to, 408- 
410. 

Spaniards and Portuguese in 

Japan, 469. 
Specialization scientific, value of, 

309. 

Speculation philosophic, modern, 

two-fold, 339. 
Spencer Herbert; first reading of 
his philosophy, 103 and 104 ; 
youthful criticism of, 175 — 
179; quoted, 304: his law of 
evolution 338 ; note on, 363. 
j " Spencerism, Gospel of Modern 
Japan," 477. 
Spinoza, Baruch, 328. 
Spiritual morbidity, danger of at 
College, 40. 
| " Spiritual Science, Possibility 
of;" lecture, 164—182. 
Spontaneity psychical, 369 ; 383. 
! Spottsylvania Court House, Vir- 
! ginia, 624. 

• Stannard's Marsh, Virginia, 625. 
| State House, the Old, Boston, 

Massachusetts, 247. 
j Staples, C.irlton A., 242. 

Stearns, Oliver, 138. 

Stewart, Dugald, 335; note on 
Burns, 681. 
j Sturgis, Gen. Samuel D., 583 ; 610. 
I Sunderland, Jabez T., 556. 

Sugar-Loaf, Mount, Maryland, 592, 
1 Sugiura, Jugo, 504. 
i Suzuki, Bunji, 554; 555. 

Swing, David, relations with, 55. 
i Syllogism, the, 378. 

Symonds, John Addington, quot- 
ed, 445. 

System, or organism, 339. 

Taine, Hippolyte Adolphe; des- 
cription of Assisi Church, 449; 
quoted, 702. 

Taiyot quoted, 545. 



780 



INDEX 



Tanka, standard Japanese verse, 
717. 

Taorraina, view from, 752. 
Tennyson Alfred, quoted, 10. 
Ten-ri-kyo; 266; 277 ; 531. 
Tenth Century, terror of, 442; 
447. • 

Tesshuji, view from, 753. 
Thackeray, William Makepeace. 
709. 

Theodicy, Isaiah's sublime, 212. 
Theological Seminary of the 

Northwest; mental unrest as a 

student there, 64; graduation 

from, 80. 
Theology, Medieval, dogmas of, 

427. 

Thinking, The Mind's Process 

''in;" a lecture, 369. 
Thomas, Maj. Gen. George H, 

52 ; 580. 

"Thought and Fact for To-day," 

an essay, 765. 
Thought, feeling, and will, what, 

367. 

Time, as a fact of experience, 407. 
Ti berg hie n, G., estimate of 
fc Krause's Philosophy, 341. 
Tiffany, Francis, 191. 
Titian, Vecellio, 440. 
To-itsu Kirisuto-kyo Kodokwai, 552 ; 
555. 

Tokyo Unitarian Church, 553. 
Toyama, Shoichi, 504. 
Toyosaki, Zennosuke, 516. 
Tract, a notable, 61. 
Trent, Council of, 426. 
Tridentine Decrees, 426. 
Turner, " Dick," 631. 
Turner, Mrs. Lisbeth A., 648. 
Turner, Maj. Thomas P., 631. 

Uchigasaki, Sakusaburo, 553, 555. 
Ueberweg, Friedrich, estimate of 
" Krause, 194. 

Union Philosophical Society, 32. 
" Unitarian Christian Church, 

The Work of ; " inaugural 

sermon of my ministry at 

Waltham, 153-162. 
"Unitarianism, Relation to the 

Older Christian Sects ; " address 



at the Forty-seventh Anniver- 
sary of the American Unitarian 
Association, 182. 

" Unitarian Mission to Japan," 
see "Japan." 

Unitarianism as a "religious 
ideal," 509. 

United States Christian Commis- 
sion, service with in 1864 and 
1865, 50 ; 51. 

Unity Hall, Tokyo ; headquarters 
of Japan Unitarian Mission, 
486; work at, 515. 

"Unity Pamphlets,'; 485. 

University of Leipzig, attendance 
there, 192. 

University of Minnesota; candi- 
dacy for " professorship of 
mental and moral science " in, 
291-298; course of lectures 
given on " Fundamental Truths 
of Philosophy " at, 299-419, 

Ct Universe; " the supreme genera- 
lization, 403 ; relation of, to 
" God," 417. 

Urbild cler Menschheit, note on by 
Amiel, 195. 



Verification," what, 337. 
Voltaire, Francois M. A. ; 322. 

Waltham, Massachusetts ; instal- 
lation as minister of First 
Parish, 137; Installation Hymn 
at, 138; inaugural sermon 
at, 153-164 ; character of minis- 
try there, 140 ; resignation of 
pastorate, why, 190. 

Ware, John F. W., 242. 

Washington, D. C, winter vaca- 
tion there, 1861-62, 37; 

Washington, D. C, "First Uni- 
tarian Church;" invited to 
occupy its pulpit, 231; historic 
notes about, 232, and 247-252; 
its reorganization as " All Souls 
Church," (which see,) 236. 

Wasson, David A., 191. 

Watanabe, H., 504. 

Weiss, John, 191. 

Weld, Charles R.. 191. 

Wendte Charles W,, 557. 



INDEX 



781 



Western Theological Seminary, 
Allegheny, Penn., 51. 

Whiteside Sentinel, the, com- 
ments on Council at Morrison, 
83 ; 91. 

White Sulphur Springs, Virginia, 

action at, 601. 
Wiesbaden, Germany, represent 

American Unitarian Association 

at Protestantenverein, 1874, 192. 
Wigmore, John Henry, 506. 
Will, the; what, 382; freedom 

for, 386. 
Willard, Henry A., 233. 
Windelband, W., quotations from 

317; 323; 331. 
Witchcraft, 123. 



Woodbury, Augustus, 138. 
Woodbury, H. E., 241. 
Wolff, Christian von, 330. 
Wordsworth, William, quoted, 
696. 

Yamato damashii, 532 ; 542. 

Yano Fumio, 504. 

" Year of Jubilee, the, 420. 

Yezidees, 279. 

Yoshida, Kenko, 721. 

Yuai Shimpo, 554. 

Yuiitsukwan, 515 ; 520. 

' Zone of fracture, the Earth's 
great," 739. 



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